Quotes from Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Woman's degradation is in mans idea of his sexual rights. Our religion, laws, customs, are all founded on the belief that woman was made for man.

The first step in the elevation of women under all systems of religion is to convince them that the great Spirit of the Universe is in no way responsible for any of these absurdities.

Social science affirms that a woman's place in society marks the level of civilization.

To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all laws into contempt.

What will we and our daughters suffer if these degraded black men are allowed to have the rights that would make them even worse than our Saxon fathers?

The history of mankind is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations on the part of man toward woman.

We are the only class in history that has been left to fight its battles alone, unaided by the ruling powers. White labor and the freed black men had their champions, but where are ours?

When men and women think, the first step to progress is taken.

Oh, the shortcomings and inconsistency of the average human being, especially when this human being is a man trying to manage women's affairs!

One remarkable fact stands out in the history of witchcraft; and that is, its victims were chiefly women. Scarce one wizard to a hundred witches was ever burned or tortured.

All honor to the noble women that have devoted earnest lives to the intellectual needs of mankind!

To think that all in me of which my father would have felt proper pride had I been a man, is deeply mortifying to him because I am a woman.

I think if women would indulge more freely in vituperation, they would enjoy ten times the health they do. It seems to me they are suffering from repression.

We demand in the Reconstruction suffrage for all the citizens of the Republic. I would not talk of Negroes or women, but of citizens.

Women and negroes, being seven-twelfths of the people, are a majority; and according to our republican theory, are the rightful rulers of the nation.

To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.

Religious superstitions more than all other influences put together cripple & enslave woman, but so long as women themselves do not see it & hug their chains, we have a great educational work to do.

Women of all classes are awakening to the necessity of self-support, but few are willing to do the ordinary useful work for which they are fitted.

The moment we begin to fear the opinions of others and hesitate to tell the truth that is in us, and from motives of policy are silent when we should speak, the divine floods of light and life no longer flow into our souls.

The God of justice is with us, and our word, our work - our prayer for freedom will not, cannot be in vain.

The strongest reason for giving woman all the opportunities for higher education, for the full development of her faculties, her forces of mind and body... is the solitude and personal responsibility of her own individual life.

The more I think on the present condition of woman, the more am I oppressed with the reality of their degradation.

The right is ours. Have it we must. Use it we will.

I thought that the chief thing to be done in order to equal boys was to be learned and courageous. So I decided to study Greek and learn to manage a horse.