A Nation of Women

Quotes

1. There is nothing more harmful to the success of an endeavor than timidity, pusilanimity, and doubt. This type of cowardice that I believe only the lazy possess. I do not believe anything to be impossible; nor am I amazed by any invention or discovery, which is why I do not find any idea utopian. What is essential is that the idea be put into practice. Begin! The rest is weakness and an erroneous concept of human power. Wanting is doing!

2. 

   What do we think of those who oppose all ideas of equality and human freedom? We consider them traitors, Judases who have betrayed the Teacher. Those who judge unrealized ideas to be utopian are obstacles, and obstacles must be pushed aside. They are those who hinder great initiatives, works for the common good. And still, they call themselves patriots and fathers of the homeland. What idea of the homeland can they have? One that is egotistical, which begins and ends with them. They are everything.

3. 

   If women were appropriately enlightened, educated and emancipated from routine formulism, the political life of most nations would be different

4. 

   A man only used to seeing a woman as an object of pleasure forgets that she is destined to be the mother and teacher of a new generation.

5. 

   In a communist social system in which individuals have the right over everything produced by nature and the ingenuity of all, there could be greater liberty, and a man could form a family without economic and social worries. But we still have not arrived at such an era, it will not take long for this beautiful common process to be established among humans.

6. 

   women are capable of everything and anything

7. 

   No doubt, the first and best school is the home. The best and most superior teacher for the child is an educated mother

8. 

   Individuals of both sexes have fallen into the error of believing that it is only men that have the right to use their freedom as they please.

9. 

   useful hands are preferable to ones that are merely beautiful.

10. 

    what others consider utopian is for me something that can become reality.

11. 

    Let us study and prepare our generation for the future struggles, which lie ahead.

12. 

    It is time that "equality" stop being a vain phrase, and that the rights of both men and women be equal.

13. 

    All those who support and continue exploiting others, are the ones who sustain the state of misery of the people and therefore are the ones who maintain jails, penitentiaries, or better yet, the ones who create thieves, murderers, the insane, religious and political fanatics. Because if it were not for the fear of misery, there would be no political or religious fanatics. The fear of misery, or misery itself makes one commit crude acts that degenerate into crimes, injustices, and madness, which is why we have jails and mental institutions, inequalities and injustices. The Social Revolution will make these iniquities disappear. And the revolution will rise up through propaganda and study and scientific research. And we anarchists are the ones who propagandize and an education is within the reach of all. Let us study and prepare our generation for the future struggles that draw closer.

14. 

    The current social system, with all its errors, is sustained by the ignorance and slavery of women.

15. 

    I cannot explain why a man always feels he has rights over a woman.

16. 

    My great worry is the problem of poverty…Instead of prisons, I would have schools, art and vocational academies, free trade, free love, the abolition of marriage and the substitution of private property for public property.

17. 

    I refuse to accept the assertion of any historian who erroneously believes that women have no right to use their freedom without being considered corrupt or immoral, while men have been able to do whatever they want and indulge the most absurd and ridiculous whims, without being judged, repudiated or prevented from going where they choose, with no concern about not being paid attention to, respected or sought after. We are going to put an end to those unequal laws-where the few have a lot and the many have a little-in order to finally secure peace for the just and achieve the truth and justice that our sex deserves.

18. 

    Although we are all brothers, some die of hunger and of foodstuffs, clothing and shoes. And with so many naked and bare-while what is useful and necessary rots at the depots and warehouses

19. 

    a true beauty, real and lasting, [is] achieved by a healthy diet, without eating meat or drinking alcoholic beverages, by practicing gymnastics and taking walks in the open air, not a fictitious beauty such as that of adornment, without which, she is no longer herself.

20. 

    How many girls pay for the tantrums, jealousies or vexations of their mothers, who act without any justifying motive, only because they need to blow off steam and they can’t do it in front of their husbands.

21. 

    For women it is generally admitted that her sexual life is null or subordinate to that of the companion-legal or otherwise-that she has chosen. She should live and feel for him; be passionate if he is, and maintain herself neutral if he is cold. Until now a man has considered sensual desire as something that pertains to him, not recognizing in women a moral and physical self organized like him.

22. 

    Women must become enlightened or educated, because being enlightened encompasses all the fields of human science: Physiology, Geology, Geography, Chemistry, Physics, Astronomy, Engineering, Agriculture, Geometry, History, Music, and Painting...Education is a beautiful and necessary thing.

23. 

    If a woman is not instructed and educated will she be able to educate, counsel, and guide her children suitably? No. And this is an important matter that should interest women, the home being the first and most necessary of schools. Whatever the child sees the mother do or say is what the child will observe and learn.

24. 

    Could there exist true happiness in a marriage when the man is the only one who can regularly exercise his free will and satisfy his desires, without caring whether or not his wife agrees? Accustomed to the passive obedience of women, he does not bother to find out whether or not she is satisfied with his conduct. And if she is not, he does not attempt to please her, nor to adapt his conduct to a new way of life. How can the holy priestess of the hearth preserve the sacred fire of love in the home when she has to officiate alone? Where is the principal object of her devotion? Look for him outside the home at those times when he should be at the side of his companion. Will a solid foundation for domestic happiness be established by this behavior? No. Men have the right to do or undo, without his companion. He goes to a masked ball or not, to the casino, to gamble, or chases other women.... and meanwhile, poor woman! A sad scenario for domestic bliss! She is subjected to a sad solitude for days and nights on end, orphaned of love, of sweet attentions and joys while the above-mentioned companion gambles, dances... or falls in love.

25. 

    Education is the mother of freedom; science is her eldest daughter; and her sisters, tolerance and discretion, with rights and responsibilities.

26. 

    Education means cultivating patience, tolerance, a sweet disposition, harmony, abnegation, and temperateness. Anyone who cultivates these virtues is truly educated.

27. 

    Women, by force of will and energy, are quite capable of doing certain jobs that they previously had been denied. This theory is constantly disputed by those who claim women's inferiority due to sexual difference, which, it is said, seems to be an immutable law of nature. But there is nothing more false than to attempt in this way to uphold the permanent superiority of men.

28. 

    She’s a woman, not only when she’s powdered and wearing lace and ribbons, just like a man doesn’t stop being a man when he learns to cook, mend, sweep and sew.

29. 

    Harmony within a marriage greatly influences the education of children, our future citizens. How many times have a mother’s tears, cried in moments of pain and contradiction, powerfully influenced her children!

30. 

    As a general rule, women nowadays dedicate all their energy, all their attention to their appearance; they are not concerned with anything except wearing the latest fashion; they squander all their intelligence in trying to become more beautiful, and not even in any practical way, by some beneficial and hygienic method, like practicing gymnastics, exercising in the fresh air, or swimming every morning. But no, it must be done with ribbons and lace, by cutting their breath short from the excessive use of tight-fitting corsets. And this translates to a waste of time, health, and money.

31. 

    The only thing we want to put forth is that women must acquire greater freedom and rights. The current system, with all its errors, is sustained by the ignorance and slavery of women.

32. 

    In the middle of great abundance, and without having studied the social question, I believed that everybody had the right to be clean and clothed, to wear shoes, and I didn’t understand why it wasn’t so. I thought everyone knew how to read and write and I was astonished when I saw the opposite

33. 

    There are many women who think that being a mother means contradicting a child, and later they beat them, and order them about for the sake of giving orders, to see herself obeyed, ordering the child not to run, not to jump, not to yell, in sum, a whole bunch of ignorant things, the truth is, to prohibit a child from doing all this is to prohibit them from being healthy. They act like this with girls precisely because they are girls, as if a girl's organism did not have to develop, so that they can grow up beautiful and strong, and not scrawny and pale, nor become mothers full of pains and ailments. They think that being a mother authorizes them to mistreat and order the children at whim, and oblige them to do things against their will, that is an error.

That’s all the quotes.

33 quotes in the collection · come back when we add more