Frances Wright Quotes & Sayings

We have broken down the self-respecting spirit of man with nursery tales and priestly threats, and we dare to assert, that inproportion as we have prostrated our understanding and degraded our nature, we have exhibited virtue, wisdom, and happiness, in our words, our actions, and our lives! — Frances Wright

These will vary in every human being; but knowledge is the same for every mind, and every mind may and ought to be trained to receive it. — Frances Wright

The happiness of a people is the only rational object of government, and the only object for which a people, free to choose, can have a government at all. — Frances Wright

There is a vulgar persuasion, that the ignorance of women, by favoring their subordination, ensures their utility. 'Tis the same argument employed by the ruling few against the subject many in aristocracies; by the rich against the poor in democracies; by the learned professions against the people in all countries. — Frances Wright

Man has been adjudged a social animal. — Frances Wright

I never walked through the streets of any city with as much satisfaction as those of Philadelphia. The neatness and cleanliness of all animate and inanimate things, houses, pavements, and citizens, is not to be surpassed. — Frances Wright

What were the glories of the sun, if we knew not the gloom of darkness? — Frances Wright

I feel virtuous because my soul is at ease. — Frances Wright

I am neither Jew nor Gentile, Mohammedan nor Theist; I am but a member of the human family, and would accept of truth by whomsoever offered
that truth which we can all find, if we will but seek in things, not in words; in nature, not in human imagination; in our own hearts, not in temples made with hands. — Frances Wright

All that I say is, examine, inquire. Look into the nature of things. Search out the grounds of your opinions, the for and against. Know why you believe, understand what you believe, and possess a reason for the faith that is in you. — Frances Wright

The yearly expenses of the existing religious systemexceed in these United States twenty millions of dollars. Twenty millions! For teaching what? Things unseen and causes unknown! ... Twenty millions would more than suffice to make us wise; and alas! do they not more than suffice to make us foolish? — Frances Wright

Religion may be defined thus: a belief in, and homage rendered to, existences unseen and causes unknown. — Frances Wright

Persecution for opinion is the master vice of society. — Frances Wright

Speak of change, and the world is in alarm. And yet where do we not see change? — Frances Wright

The knowledge of one generation is the ignorance of the next. — Frances Wright

But while human liberty has engaged the attention of the enlightened, and enlisted the feelings of the generous of all civilized nations, may we not enquire if this liberty has been rightly understood? — Frances Wright

Instead of establishing facts, we have to overthrow errors; instead of ascertaining what is, we have to chase from our imaginations what is not. — Frances Wright

Your spiritual teachers caution you against enquiry
tell you not to read certain books; not to listen to certain people; to beware of profane learning; to submit your reason, and to receive their doctrines for truths. Such advice renders them suspicious counsellors. — Frances Wright

You have heard of, and studied various systems of philosophy; but real philosophy is opposed to all systems. — Frances Wright

If we bring not the good courage of minds covetous of truth, and truth only, prepared to hear all things, and decide upon all things, according to evidence, we should do more wisely to sit down contented in ignorance, than to bestir ourselves only to reap disappointment. — Frances Wright

Love of power more frequently originates in vanity than pride (two qualities, by the way, which are often confounded) and is, consequently, yet more peculiarly the sin of little than of great minds. — Frances Wright

I dare say you marvel sometimes at my independent way of walking through the world just as if nature had made me of your sex instead of poor Eve's. Trust me, my beloved friend, the mind has no sex but what habit and education give it, and I who was thrown in infancy upon the world like a wreck upon the waters have learned, as well to struggle with the elements as any male child of Adam. — Frances Wright

All learning is useful, all the sciences are curious, all the arts are beautiful; but the most useful, most curious and most beautiful is perfect knowledge and perfect government of oneself. — Frances Wright

There is but one honest limit to the rights of a sentient being; it is where they touch the rights of another sentient being. — Frances Wright

He who lives in the single exercise of his mental faculties, however usefully or curiously directed, is equally an imperfect animal with the man who knows only the exercise of muscles. — Frances Wright

Do we exert our own liberties without injury to others - we exert them justly; do we exert them at the expense of others - unjustly. And, in thus doing, we step from the sure platform of liberty upon the uncertain threshold of tyranny. — Frances Wright

[May] the olive of peace and brotherhood be embraced by the white man and the black, and their children, approached in feeling and education, gradually blend into one their blood and their hue. — Frances Wright

Equality! Where is it, if not in education? Equal rights! They cannot exist without equality of instruction. — Frances Wright

The simplest principles become difficult of practice, when habits, formed in error, have been fixed by time, and the simplest truths hard to receive when prejudice has warped the mind. — Frances Wright

It is not that religion is merely useless, it is mischievous. It is mischievous by its idle terrors; it is mischievous by its false morality; it is mischievous by its hypocrisy; by its fanaticism; by its dogmatism; by its threats; by its hopes; by its promises. — Frances Wright

Do not confound noise with fame. The man who is remembered, is not always honored. — Frances Wright

The leading error of the human mind, - the bane of human happiness - the perverter of human virtue ... is Religion - that dark coinage of trembling ignorance! It is Religion - that poisoner of human felicity! It is Religion - that blind guide of human reason! It is Religion - that dethroner of human virtue! which lies at the root of all the evil and all the misery that pervade the world! — Frances Wright

It has already been observed that women, wherever placed, however high or low in the scale of cultivation, hold the destinies of human kind. Men will ever rise or fall to the level of the other sex. — Frances Wright

The world is full of religion, and full of misery and crime. — Frances Wright

Knowledge signifies things known. Where there are no things known, there is no knowledge. Where there are no things to be known, there can be no knowledge. We have observed that every science, that is, every branch of knowledge, is compounded of certain facts, of which our sensations furnish the evidence. Where no such evidence is supplied, we are without data; we are without first premises; and when, without these, we attempt to build up a science, we do as those who raise edifices without foundations. And what do such builders construct? Castles in the air. — Frances Wright

If they exert it not for good, they will for evil; if they advance not knowledge, they will perpetuate ignorance. — Frances Wright

We have ... dreamed so much and observed so little, that our imaginations have grown larger than the world we live in, and our judgments have dwindled down to a point. — Frances Wright

Let us enquire. Who, then, shall challenge the words? Why are they challenged. And by whom? By those who call themselves the guardians of morality, and who are the constituted guardians of religion. Enquiry, it seems, suits not them. They have drawn the line, beyond which human reason shall not pass
above which human virtue shall not aspire! All that is without their faith or above their rule, is immorality, is atheism, is
I know not what. — Frances Wright

We have seen that no religion stands on the basis of things known; none bounds its horizon within the field of human observation; and, therefore, as it can never present us with indisputable facts, so must it ever be at once a source of error and contention. — Frances Wright

How prone we are to come to the consideration of every question with heads and hearts pre-occupied! How prone to shrink from any opinion, however reasonable, if it be opposed to any, however unreasonable, of our own! How disposed are we to judge, in anger, those who call upon us to think, and encourage us to enquire! To question our prejudices seems nothing less than sacrilege; to break the chains of our ignorance, nothing short of impiety! — Frances Wright

How are men to be secured in any rights without instruction; how to be secured in the equal exercise of those rights without equality of instruction? By instruction understand me to mean knowledge - just knowledge; not talent, not genius, not inventive mental powers. — Frances Wright

I am neither Jew nor Gentile, Mahomedan nor Theist; I am but a member of the human family ... — Frances Wright

Now here is a departure from the first principle of true ethics. Here we find ideas of moral wrong and moral right associated with something else than beneficial action. The consequent is, we lose sight of the real basis of morals, and substitute a false one. — Frances Wright

The best road to correct reasoning is by physical science; the way to trace effects to causes is through physical science; the only corrective, therefore, of superstition is physical science. — Frances Wright

It will appear evident upon attentive consideration that equality of intellectual and physical advantages is the only sure foundation of liberty, and that such equality may best, and perhaps only, be obtained by a union of interests and cooperation in labor. — Frances Wright

Ambition is the necessary spur of a great mind to great action; when acting upon a weak mind it impels it to absurdity, or sours it with discontent. — Frances Wright

No man can see his own prejudices ... — Frances Wright

[Men] are incomprehensible animals... They walk about boasting of their wisdom, strength, and sovereignty, while they have not sense so much as to swallow an apple with the aid of an Eve to put it down their throats. — Frances Wright

Let us unite on the safe and sure ground of fact and experiment, and we can never err; yet better, we can never differ. — Frances Wright

Surely it is time to examine into the meaning of words and the nature of things, and to arrive at simple facts, not received upon the dictum of learned authorities, but upon attentive personal observation of what is passing around us. — Frances Wright

We hear of the wealth of nations, of the powers of production, of the demand and supply of markets, and we forget that these words mean no more, if they mean any thing, then the happiness, and the labor, and the necessities of men. — Frances Wright

Trust me, there are as many ways of living as there are men, and one is no more fit to lead another, than a bird to lead a fish, or a fish a quadruped. — Frances Wright

Credulity is always ridiculous. — Frances Wright

Credulity is always a ridiculous, often a dangerous failing: it has made of many a clever man, a fool; and of many a good man, a knave. — Frances Wright

Of the thousands who have paid homage to virtue, barely one has thought to inspect the pedestal on which it stands. — Frances Wright

A necessary consequent of religious belief is the attaching ideas of merit to that belief, and of demerit to its absence. — Frances Wright

The condition of women affords in all countries the best criterion by which to judge the character of men. — Frances Wright

The language of truth is too simple for inexperienced ears. — Frances Wright

A nation to be strong, must be united; to be united, must be equal in condition; to be equal in condition, must be similar inhabits and feeling; to be similar in habits and feeling, must be raised in national institutions as the children of a common family, and citizens of a common country. — Frances Wright

The existing principle of selfish interest and competition has been carried to its extreme point; and, in its progress, has isolated the heart of man, blunted the edge of his finest sensibilities, and annihilated all his most generous impulses and sympathies. — Frances Wright

Moral truth, resting entirely upon the ascertained consequences of actions, supposes a process of observation and reasoning. — Frances Wright

The sciences have ever been the surest guides to virtue. — Frances Wright

Truth is but approved facts. — Frances Wright

It was in this year, 1828, that the standard of "the Christian Party in Politics" was openly unfurled ... This was an evident attempt, through the influence of the clergy over the female mind - until this hour lamentably neglected in the United States - to effect a union of Church and State. — Frances Wright

Our religious belief usurps the place of our sensations, our imaginations of our judgment. We no longer look to actions, trace their consequences, and then deduce the rule; we first make the rule, and then, right or wrong, force the action to square with it. — Frances Wright

So long as the mental and moral instruction of man is left solely in the hands of hired servants of the public
let them be teachers of religion, professors of colleges, authors of books, or editors of journals or periodical publications, dependent upon their literary incomes for their daily bread, so long shall we hear but half the truth; and well if we hear so much. Our teachers, political, scientific, moral, or religious; our writers, grave or gay, are compelled to administer to our prejudices and to perpetuate our ignorance. — Frances Wright

Look into the nature of things. Search out the grounds of your opinions, the for and against. — Frances Wright

Many are called impious, not for having a worse, but a different religion from their neighbors; and many atheistical, not for the denying of God, but for thinking somewhat peculiarly concerning him. — Frances Wright

However novel it may appear, I shall venture the assertion, that, until women assume the place in society which good sense and good feeling alike assign to them, human improvement must advance but feebly. — Frances Wright

It would be impossible for women to stand in higher estimation than they do here. The deference that is paid to them at all times and in all places has often occasioned me as much surprise as pleasure. — Frances Wright

The hired preachers of all sects, creeds, and religions, never do, and never can, teach any thing but what is in conformity with the opinions of those who pay them. — Frances Wright

Pets, like their owners, tend to expand a little over the Christmas period. — Frances Wright

It is in vain that we would circumscribe the power of one half of our race, and that half by far the most important and influential. — Frances Wright

Opinions are not to be learned by rote, like the letters of an alphabet, or the words of a dictionary. They are conclusions to be formed, and formed by each individual in the sacred and free citadel of the mind, and there enshrined beyond the arm of law to reach, or force to shake; ay! and beyond the right of impertinent curiosity to violate, or presumptuous arrogance to threaten. — Frances Wright

So far from entrenching human conduct within the gentle barriers of peace and love, religion has ever been, and now is, the deepest source of contentions, wars, persecutions for conscience sake, angry words, angry feelings, backbitings, slanders, suspicions, false judgments, evil interpretations, unwise, unjust, injurious, inconsistent actions. — Frances Wright

Awaken its powers, and it will respect itself. — Frances Wright

An opinion, right or wrong, can never constitute a moral offense, nor be in itself a moral obligation. It may be mistaken; it may involve an absurdity, or a contradiction. It is a truth; or it is an error: it can never be a crime or a virtue. — Frances Wright

Equality is the soul of liberty; there is, in fact, no liberty without it. — Frances Wright

The man possessed of a dollar, feels himself to be not merely one hundred cents richer, but also one hundred cents better, than the man who is penniless; so on through all the gradations of earthly possessions - the estimate of our own moral and political importance swelling always in a ratio exactly proportionate to the growth of our purse. — Frances Wright

Fathers and husbands! do ye not also understand this fact? Do ye not see how, in the mental bondage of your wives and fair companions, ye yourselves are bound? — Frances Wright

To give liberty to a slave before he understands its value is, perhaps, rather to impose a penalty than to bestow a blessing ... — Frances Wright

We are on the earth, and they tell us of heaven; we are human beings, and they tell us of angels and devils; we are matter, and they tell us of spirit; we have five senses whereby to admit truths, and a reasoning faculty by which to build our belief upon them; and they tell us of dreams dreamed thousands of years ago, which our experience flatly contradicts. — Frances Wright

It is singular to look round upon a country where the dreams of sages, smiled at as utopian, seem distinctly realized, a people voluntarily submitting to laws of their own imposing, with arms in their hands respecting the voice of a government which their breath created and which their breath could in a moment destroy! — Frances Wright

The mode of delivering a truth makes, for the most part, as much impression on the mind of the listener as the truth itself. — Frances Wright

Be not afraid! In admitting a creator, refuse not to examine his creation; and take not the assertions of creatures like yourselves, in place of the evidence of your senses and the conviction of your understanding. — Frances Wright

And when did mere preaching do any good? Put something in the place of these things. Fill the vacuum of the mind. — Frances Wright

Turn your churches into halls of science, and devote your leisure day to the study of your own bodies, the analysis of your own minds, and the examination of the fair material world which extends around you! — Frances Wright