Nellie L. McClung Quotes & Sayings

By nice women ... you probably mean selfish women who have no more thought for the underprivileged, overworked women than a pussycat in a sunny window for the starving kitten in the street. Now in that sense I am not a nice woman, for I do care. — Nellie L. McClung

Women who set a low value of themselves make life hard for all women. — Nellie L. McClung

In regard to tenacity of life, no old yellow cat has anything on a prejudice. You may kill it with your own hands, bury it deep, and sit on the grave, and behold! the next day it will walk in at the back door, purring. — Nellie L. McClung

Children are great idealists, until the stupidity of their elders puts out the fires of the aspirations. — Nellie L. McClung

Never complain, never explain, get the thing done and let them howl. — Nellie L. McClung

I saw what could be done with words, for I had a vision of a new world as I talked. — Nellie L. McClung

Women are going to form a chain, a greater sisterhood than the world has ever known. — Nellie L. McClung

People must know the past to understand the present, and to face the future; — Nellie L. McClung

We may yet live to see the day when women will be no longer news! And it cannot come too soon. I want to be a peaceful, happy, normal human being, pursuing my unimpeded way through life, never having to stop to explain, defend or apologize for my sex. — Nellie L. McClung

Never retract, never explain, never apologize; get things done and let them howl. — Nellie L. McClung

The average reader can contemplate with considerable fortitude the sorrows and disappointments of someone else. — Nellie L. McClung

The grief that can be turned into words soon heals. — Nellie L. McClung

I am a believer in women, in their ability to do things and in their influence and power. Women set the standards for the world, and it is for us, women in Canada, to set the standards high. — Nellie L. McClung

No nation ever rises higher than its women ... — Nellie L. McClung

Women had first to convince the world that they had souls and then that they had minds and then it came on to this matter of political entity and the end is not yet ... — Nellie L. McClung

Disturbers are never popular - nobody ever really loved an alarm clock in action, no matter how grateful he may have been afterwards for its kind services! — Nellie L. McClung

I want to leave something behind when I go; some small legacy of truth, some word that will shine in a dark place. — Nellie L. McClung

It is often true that those who sit in the wings can see more than the players. — Nellie L. McClung

The economic dependence of women is perhaps the greatest injustice that has been done to us, and has worked the greatest injury to the race. — Nellie L. McClung

I am one of those irritating people, who hang on to the door-knob after they say good-bye, and will neither come back nor go, always remembering something else which must be said ... — Nellie L. McClung

The good is the greatest rival of the best. — Nellie L. McClung

Literature may be light as a cobweb, but it must be fastened down to life at the four corners. — Nellie L. McClung

That seems to be the haunting fear of mankind - that the advancement of women will sometime, someway, someplace, interfere with some man's comfort. — Nellie L. McClung

War proves nothing. To kill a man does not prove that he was in the wrong. Bloodletting cannot change men's spirits, neither can the evil of men's thoughts be driven out by blows. If I go to my neighbor's house, and break her furniture, and smash her pictures, and bind her children captive, it does not prove that I am fitter to live than she - yet according to ethics of nations it does. I have conquered her and she must pay me for my trouble; and her house and all that is left in it belongs to my heirs and successors, forever. That is war! — Nellie L. McClung

Chivalry is like a line of credit. You can get plenty of it when you do not need it. — Nellie L. McClung

Humanity has to travel a hard road to wisdom, and it has to travel it with bleeding feet. — Nellie L. McClung

Always in Alberta there is a fresh wind blowing. — Nellie L. McClung

Thought without expression is dynamic and gathers volume by repression. Evolution when blocked and suppressed becomes revolution. — Nellie L. McClung

Never explain, never retract, never apologize. Just get the thing done and let them howl. — Nellie L. McClung

It makes a great difference to a speaker whether he has something to say, or has to say something. — Nellie L. McClung

Have we not the brains to think? Hands to work? Hearts to feel? And lives to live? — Nellie L. McClung

I think this is the greatest and best country in all the world, with its great sunlit spaces and its long long roads, and best of all the roads that are not made yet, and the stories that no one has told because they are too busy living them. — Nellie L. McClung

The middle years of life come on like thunder. — Nellie L. McClung

Canada is destined to be one of the great nations of the world and Canadian women must be ready for citizenship. — Nellie L. McClung

War is the antithesis of all our teaching. It breaks all the commandments; it makes rich men poor, and strong men weak. It makes well men sick, and by it living men are changed to dead men. — Nellie L. McClung

War is a crime committed by men and, therefore, when enough people say it shall not be, it cannot be. — Nellie L. McClung

Why are pencils equipped with erasers if not to correct mistakes? — Nellie L. McClung

Every season of life has its compensations ... — Nellie L. McClung

Chivalry is a poor substitute for justice, if one cannot have both. Chivalry is something like the icing on the cake, sweet but not nourishing. — Nellie L. McClung

The greatest insult came at the marriage ceremony when the minister asked 'who giveth this woman,' and some brother, or father or other man, unblushingly said he did, as though it were entirely a commercial transaction between men. — Nellie L. McClung

The horse on the treadmill may be very discontented, but he is not disposed to tell his troubles, for he cannot stop to talk. — Nellie L. McClung

Men alone are not capable of making laws for men and women. — Nellie L. McClung

A wound in a young heart is like a wound in a young tree. It does not grow out. It grows in. — Nellie L. McClung

Prohibition is a hard sounding word, worthless as a rallying cry, hard as a locked door or going to bed without your supper. — Nellie L. McClung