SUSAN B. ANTHONY QUOTES II

American social reformer (1820-1906)

Susan B. Anthony quote

A woman growing up under American ideas of liberty in government and religion, having never blushed behind a Turkish mask, nor pressed her feet in Chinese shoes, cannot brook any disabilities based on sex alone, without a deep feeling of antagonism with the power that creates it.

SUSAN B. ANTHONY

introduction, History of Woman Suffrage

Tags: America


Marriage, to women as to men, must be a luxury, not a necessity; an incident of life, not all of it. And the only possible way to accomplish this great change is to accord to women equal power in the making, shaping and controlling of the circumstances of life.

SUSAN B. ANTHONY

speech, spring 1875

Tags: marriage


Join the union, girls, and together say Equal Pay for Equal Work.

SUSAN B. ANTHONY

The Revolution, Mar. 18, 1869

Tags: labor unions


We assert the province of government to be to secure the people in the enjoyment of their unalienable rights. We throw to the winds the old dogma that governments can give rights.

SUSAN B. ANTHONY

during her trial for voting in the presidential election of Nov. 1872

Tags: government


Every generation of converts threshes over the same old straw.

SUSAN B. ANTHONY

History of Woman Suffrage


I do not demand equal pay for any women save those who do equal work in value. Scorn to be coddled by your employers; make them understand that you are in their service as workers, not as women.

SUSAN B. ANTHONY

The Revolution, Oct. 8, 1868


Well I have been & gone & done it!!--positively voted the Republican ticket--strait--this A.M. at 7 Oclock--& swore my vote in at that--was registered on Friday & 15 other women followed suit in this ward--then in Sunday others some 20 or thirty other women tried to register, but all save two were refused--all my three sisters voted--Rhoda De Garmo too--Amy Post was rejected & she will immediately institute bring action against the registrars--then another woman who was registered but vote refused will bring action for that--Similar to the Washington action--& Hon Henry R. Selden will be our Counsel--he has read up the law & all of our arguments & is satisfied that we are right & ditto the Old Judge Selden--his elder brother--So we are in for a fine agitation in Rochester on the question--I hope the morning's telegrams will tell of many women all over the country trying to vote--It is splendid that without any concert of action so many should have moved here so impromptu!

SUSAN B. ANTHONY

letter to Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Nov. 5, 1872

Tags: voting


The Twentieth Century woman will occupy the position of perfect equality with man -- equal though not identical. She will have her opinions counted at the ballot-box on every question. She is equally interested in, and must share the advantages and disadvantages of, every custom and law alike with man; therefore, she will not be contented to accept conditions made for her by him. She will be granted her inherent right to a voice in saying on whom and for what purposes taxes shall be levied. She will not submit to be taxed to support war, and all its concomitant vices and crimes against humanity. She will be the equal factor in the making, as well as in the enduring, of all the conditions of the world's misery or happiness. In fine, she will not be a dependent but a help-mate in the home, the church and the state.

SUSAN B. ANTHONY

letter to the Editor of the Boston Post, Dec. 20, 1900

Tags: equality


The change needed to restore good feeling cannot be reached by remanding women to the spinning wheel, and the contentment of her grandmother, but by conceding to her every right which the spirit of the age demands. Modern invention has banished the spinning wheel, and the same law of progress makes the woman of today a different woman from her grandmother.

SUSAN B. ANTHONY

introduction, History of Woman Suffrage


One-half of the people of this nation today are utterly powerless to blot from the statute books an unjust law, or to write there a new and a just one.

SUSAN B. ANTHONY

during her trial for voting in the presidential election of Nov. 1872


It is often asserted that as woman has always been man's slave--subject--inferior--dependent, under all forms of government and religion, slavery must be her normal condition. This might have some weight had not the vast majority of men also been enslaved for centuries to kings and popes, and orders of nobility, who, in the progress of civilization, have reached complete equality.

SUSAN B. ANTHONY

introduction, History of Woman Suffrage


I am asked to speak upon "The Moral Leadership of the Religious Press." For one who has for fifty years been ridiculed by both press and pulpit, denounced as infidel by both, it is, to say the least, very funny. Nevertheless I am glad to stand here today as an object lesson of the survival of the fittest, from ridicule and contempt.

SUSAN B. ANTHONY

speech to the Public and Religious Press Congress, May 27, 1893


Then the next great question has been this woman question. When we started out on that the whole religious world was turned upside down with fright. We women were disobeying St. Paul; we women were getting out of sphere and would be no good anywhere, here or hereafter; and the way that I was scarified! I don't know, somehow or other the press both secular and religious, always took special pride in scarifying Miss Anthony. I used to tell them it was because I hadn't a husband or a son who would shoot the men down who abused me. Well, now they take special pains to praise. It is a wonderful revolution of the press.

SUSAN B. ANTHONY

speech to the Public and Religious Press Congress, May 27, 1893


The only question left to be settled now is: Are women persons? And I hardly believe any of our opponents will have the hardihood to say they are not.

SUSAN B. ANTHONY

speech after her arrest for voting in the 1872 presidential election

Tags: women


Cautious, careful people, always casting about to preserve their reputation and social standing, never can bring about a reform. Those who are really in earnest must be willing to be anything or nothing in the world's estimation, and publicly and privately, in season and out, avow their sympathy with despised and persecuted ideas and their advocates, and bear the consequences.

SUSAN B. ANTHONY

Failure Is Impossible: Susan B. Anthony in Her Own Words

Tags: caution