When women can support themselves, have entry to all the trades and professions, with a house of their own over their heads and a bank account, they will own their bodies and be dictators in the social realm.
Elizabeth Cady StantonRead
To live for a principle, for the triumph of some reform by which all mankind are to be lifted up to be wedded to an idea may be, after all, the holiest and happiest of marriages.
Interpretation
Living for a principle can lead to a profound sense of fulfillment and happiness.
In this quote, Elizabeth Cady Stanton expresses that dedicating one's life to a noble principle or cause not only elevates humanity but also transforms one's own life into a sacred and joyous union with that ideal. This 'marriage' to an idea signifies a deep commitment to values that transcend individual desires, contributing to the greater good.
In practice
This quote can be used in a speech about social activism.
When women can support themselves, have entry to all the trades and professions, with a house of their own over their heads and a bank account, they will own their bodies and be dictators in the social realm.
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.
Only those who have lived all their lives under the dark clouds of vague, undefined fears can appreciate the joy of a doubting soul suddenly born into the kingdom of reason and free thought.
We demand in the Reconstruction suffrage for all the citizens of the Republic. I would not talk of Negroes or women, but of citizens.
Come, come, my conservative friend, wipe the dew off your spectacles, and see that the world is moving.
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?
We are the living graves of murdered beasts, slaughtered to satisfy our appetites. How can we hope in this world to attain the peace we say we are so anxious for?
In the affluent society, no useful distinction can be made between luxuries and necessities.
Then Morgoth stretching out his long arm towards Dor-lomin cursed Hurin and Morwen and their offspring, saying: 'Behold! The shadow of my thought shall lie upon them wherever they go, and my hate shall pursue them to the ends of the world.
Everything will be all right - you know when? When people, just people, stop thinking of the United Nations as a weird Picasso abstraction and see it as a drawing they made themselves.
Life doesn't do anything to you. It only reveals your spirit.
Indeed, there is no such thing as an altogether ugly woman — or altogether beautiful.
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