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Anna Julia Cooper

Anna Julia Cooper Quotes

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Famous Anna Julia Cooper Quotes

“The colored woman of to-day occupies, one may say, a unique position in this country. In a period of itself transitional and unsettled, her status seems one of the least ascertainable and definitive of all the forces which make for our civilization. She is confronted by both a woman question and a race problem.”

MayCountryProblemSeemsForceRacePositionPeriodsCivilizationUniqueRacism
Book:The Voice of Anna Julia Cooper: Including A Voice from the South and Other Important Essays, Papers, and Letters
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“It is the curse of minorities in this power-worshipping world that either from fear or from an uncertain policy of expedience they distrust their own standards and hesitate to give voice to their deeper convictions, submitting supinely to estimates and characterizations of themselves as handed down by a not unprejudiced dominant majority.”

WorldGivingVoicePolicyStandardsPrejudiceMajorityConvictionDeeperDiscriminationOppressionCurseMinoritiesUncertainDominantDistrustCharacterizationExpedience
Book:A Voice from the South
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“tis woman's strongest vindication for speaking that the world needs to hear her voice. It would be subversive of every human interest that the cry of one-half the human family be stifled. ... The world has had to limp along with the wobbling gait and one-sided hesitancy of a man with one eye. Suddenly the bandage is removed from the other eye and the whole body is filled with light. It sees a circle where before it saw a segment. The darkened eye restored, every member rejoices with it.”

MenWorldNeedsHumansWholeBodyLightWould BeEyeWomenVoiceInterestHalfSawsCryMembersFilledCirclesDiscriminationStrongestRejoiceWomens RightsMen WomenSubversiveOne HalfOne SidedHuman FamilyVindicationBandagesGait
Author:Anna Julia Cooper
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“The impulse of humanity toward social progress is like the movement in the currents of a great water system, from myriad sources and under myriad circumstances and conditions, beating onward, ever onward toward its eternity, the Ocean.”

HumanitySocialWaterProgressConditionsMovementSourceCircumstancesOceanEternityCurrentsImpulseSocial ChangeSocial Progress
Book:The Voice of Anna Julia Cooper: Including A Voice from the South and Other Important Essays, Papers, and Letters
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“I care not for the theoretical symmetry and impregnable logic of your moral code, I care not for the hoary respectability and traditional mysticisms of your theological institutions, I care not for the beauty and solemnity of your rituals and religious ceremonies, I care not even for the reasonableness and unimpeachable fairness of your social ethics,--if it does not turn out better, nobler, truer, men and women,--if it does not add to the world's stock of valuable souls,--if it does not give us a sounder, healthier, more reliable product from this great factory of men--I will have none of it.”

IfsMenWorldGivingDoeSoulCareReligionTurnsSocialReligiousMoralProductsMoralityEthicsMen And WomenLogicInstitutionsAddValuableTraditionalCodeMysticismRitualFactoriesFairnessI CareCeremonyTheoreticalTheologicalSymmetryRespectabilityMoral CodeSolemnityReasonablenessSounder
Book:The Voice of Anna Julia Cooper: Including A Voice from the South and Other Important Essays, Papers, and Letters
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“... religion (ought to be if it isn't) a great deal more than mere gratification of the instinct for worship linked with the straight-teaching of irreproachable credos. Religion must be life made true; and life is action, growth, development--begun now and ending never.”

IfsLifeMadeActionLife IsReligionGrowthDealsTeachingDevelopmentOughtWorshipMereInstinctLinkedGratificationCredo
Book:The Voice of Anna Julia Cooper: Including A Voice from the South and Other Important Essays, Papers, and Letters
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“... so long as woman sat with bandaged eyes and manacled hands, fast bound in the clamps of ignorance and inaction, the world of thought moved in its orbit like the revolutions of the moon; with one face (the man's face) always out, so that the spectator could not distinguish whether it was disc or sphere.”

ThinkingMenWorldLongHandsEyeFacesIgnoranceRevolutionMoonMovedBoundsSatThoughtfulSpheresSpectatorsInactionOrbitDiscs
Book:The Voice of Anna Julia Cooper: Including A Voice from the South and Other Important Essays, Papers, and Letters
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“Humanity from the first has had its vultures and sharks, and representatives of the fraternity who prey upon mankind may be expected no less in America than elsewhere. That this virulence breaks out most readily and commonly against colored persons in this country, is due of course to the fact that they are, generally speaking, weak and can be imposed upon with impunity. Bullies are always cowards at heart.”

FirstsHeartMayPersonsCountryFactsAmericaHumanityCoursesBreakMankindRacismWeakDuesExpectedCowardCowardiceElsewhereRepresentativesBullyPreySharksBreak OutFraternityImpunityVulture
Book:The Voice of Anna Julia Cooper: Including A Voice from the South and Other Important Essays, Papers, and Letters
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“The great, the fundamental need of any nation, any race, is for heroism, devotion, sacrifice; and there cannot be heroism, devotion, or sacrifice in a primarily skeptical spirit.”

NeedsSpiritNationsRaceSacrificeFundamentalsDevotionHeroismSkepticismSkeptical
Book:The Voice of Anna Julia Cooper: Including A Voice from the South and Other Important Essays, Papers, and Letters
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“... while our men seem thoroughly abreast of the times on almost every other subject, when they strike the woman question they drop back into sixteenth century logic. They leave nothing to be desired generally in regard to gallantry and chivalry, but they actually do not seem sometimes to have outgrown that old contemporary of chivalry--the idea that women may stand on pedestals or live in doll houses,... but they must not furrow their brows with thought or attempt to help men tug at the great questions of the world.”

MenWorldMayIdeasSometimesHelpingSeemsHouseSubjectsCenturyLogicRegardStrikesContemporaryHelp MeDollsBrowsPedestalChivalryGallantry
Author:Anna Julia Cooper
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“... the majority of colored men do not yet think it worth while that women aspire to higher education.... The three R's, a littlemusic and a good deal of dancing, a first rate dress-maker and a bottle of magnolia balm, are quite enough generally to render charming any woman possessed of tact and the capacity for worshipping masculinity.”

ThinkingMenFirstsEnoughThreeDealsHigherCapacityDressesMajorityDancingRateMakersBottlesPossessedCharmingAspireMasculinityFemininityHigher EducationTactMagnolias
Book:The Voice of Anna Julia Cooper: Including A Voice from the South and Other Important Essays, Papers, and Letters
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“... woman's cause is the cause of the weak; and when all the weak shall have received their due consideration, then woman will have her "rights," and the Indian will have his rights, and the Negro will have his rights, and all the strong will have learned at last to deal justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly; and our fair land will have been taught the secret of universal courtesy which is after all nothing but the art, the science, and the religion of regarding one's neighbor as one's self, and to do for him as we would, were conditions swapped, that he do for us.”

Has BeensArtSelfLastsStrongCausesJusticeWalksDealsSecretRightsLandConditionsTaughtFairsWeakMercyUniversalSocial JusticeDuesNeighborIndianConsiderationCourtesyStrong Will
Author:Anna Julia Cooper
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“... [a] girl one day flared out and told the principal "the only mission opening before a girl in his school was to marry one of those candidates [for the ministry]." He said he didn't know but it was. And when at last that same girl announced her desire and intention to go to college it was received with about the same incredulity and dismay as if a brass button on one of those candidate's coats had propounded a new method for squaring the circle or trisecting the arc.”

IfsKnowsSaidSchoolLastsDesireGirlCollegeOne DayMethodIntentionMissionsCirclesOpeningCandidatesMinistryPrincipalButtonsCoatsArcsBrassDismayIncredulity
Author:Anna Julia Cooper
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“One of the most singular facts about the unwritten history of this country is the consummate ability with which Southern influence, Southern ideas and Southern ideals, have from the very beginning even up to the present day, dictated to and domineered over the brain and sinew of this nation.”

IdeasCountryFactsNationsAbilityBrainInfluenceIdealsSouthernPresent DayUnwritten
Book:The Voice of Anna Julia Cooper: Including A Voice from the South and Other Important Essays, Papers, and Letters
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“The cause of freedom is not the cause of a race or a sect, a party or a class - it is the cause of humankind, the very birthright of humanity.”

HumanityCausesFreedomInspiringPartyRaceClassHuman RightsAfrican AmericanScholarHumankindSectsBirthrightPassportsAmerican Scholar
Book:The Voice of Anna Julia Cooper: Including A Voice from the South and Other Important Essays, Papers, and Letters
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“It is not the intelligent woman v. the ignorant woman; nor the white woman v. the black, the brown, and the red, it is not even the cause of woman v. man. Nay, tis woman's strongest vindication for speaking that the world needs to hear her voice.”

MenWorldNeedsCausesBlackVoiceWhiteRedIntelligentIgnorantBrownStrongestVindicationIntelligent Women
Book:The Voice of Anna Julia Cooper: Including A Voice from the South and Other Important Essays, Papers, and Letters
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“I speak for the colored women of the South, because it is there that the millions of blacks in this country have watered the soil with blood and tears, and it is there too that the colored woman of America has made her characteristic history and there her destiny is evolving.”

MadeCountryAmericaSpeakDestinyMillionsBloodTearsSouthEvolveCharacteristicsSoil
Book:The Voice of Anna Julia Cooper: Including A Voice from the South and Other Important Essays, Papers, and Letters
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“We might as well expect to grow trees from leaves as hope to build up a civilization or a manhood without taking into consideration our women and the home life made by them, which must be the root and ground of the whole matter. Let our girls feel that we expect something more of them than that they merely look pretty and appear well in society. Teach them that there is a race with special needs which they and only they can help; that the world needs and is already asking for their trained, efficient forces.”

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Author:Anna Julia Cooper
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