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Charlotte Perkins Gilman Quotes

Novelist

Charlotte Perkins Gilman was an American novelist, social reformer, and feminist. Her works explored the status of women in society, family, and career, and had a profound impact on women's literature and social movements.

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Famous Charlotte Perkins Gilman Quotes

“If we once admit that our life is here for the purpose of race-improvement, then we question any religion which does not improve the race, or the main force of which evaporates, as it were, directing our best efforts toward the sky.... Improvement in the human race is not accomplished by extracting any number of souls and placing them in heaven, or elsewhere. It must be established on earth, either through achievement in social service, or through better children.”

“I used to lie awake as a child and get more entertainment and terror out of blank walls and plain furniture than most children could find in a toy-store.”

Children Used Lying Wall Terror Entertainment Stores Awake Toys Blank Furniture

Book:The Yellow Wall-paper

Source: The Yellow Wall-paper

“We are pushed forward by the social forces, reluctant and stumbling, our faces over our shoulders, clutching at every relic of the past as we are forced along; still adoring whatever is behind us. We insist upon worshipping 'the God of our fathers.' Why not the God of our children? Does eternity only stretch one way?”

Way Children Doe Stills Past Faces Father Force Social Change Behinds Eternity Our Children Shoulders Resistance One Way Why Not Status Quo Our Father Reluctant Stumbling Relics

Book:The Home

Source: The Home

“Fine blunderers in ethics we are, so generally conveying to children the basic impression that pleasantness must be wrong, and right doing unpleasant!”

Children Fine Morality Ethics Impression Conveying

Book:The Living of Charlotte Perkins Gilman: An Autobiography

Source: The Living of Charlotte Perkins Gilman: An Autobiography

“If only religion could be brought to take an interest in this earthly future, what a help it would be! ... Think of the appeal to the less spiritual of us, to those who never did get enthusiastic about eternity, or care so tenderly about their own souls, yet who could rise to the thought of improving this world for the children they love, and their children after them.”

Ifs Thinking World Children Soul Helping Would Be Care Spiritual Interest This World Eternity Appeals Improving Enthusiastic

Book:His Religion and Hers: A Study of the Faith of Our Fathers and the Work of Our Mothers

Source: His Religion and Hers: A Study of the Faith of Our Fathers and the Work of Our Mothers

“The fact that women in the home have shut themselves away from the thought and life of the world has done much to retard progress.We fill the world with the children of 20th century A.D. fathers and 20th century B.C. mothers.”

World Children Done Facts Home Mother Father Progress Century 20th Century Retard

Author:Charlotte Perkins Gilman

“The children in this country are the one center and focus of all our thoughts. Every step of our advance is always considered in its effect on them-on the race. You see, we are MOTHERS, she repeated, as if in that she had said it all.”

Ifs Children Said Country Mother Race Steps Focus Effects Our Thoughts Every Step

Book:The Yellow Wall-Paper, Herland, and Selected Writings

Source: The Yellow Wall-Paper, Herland, and Selected Writings

“The child learns more of the virtues needed in modern life-of fairness, of justice, of comradeship, of collective interest and action-in a common school than can be taught in the most perfect family circle”

Children Action School Interest Justice Perfect Common Virtue Modern Taught Needed Circles Collectives Fairness Modern Life Comradeship Perfect Family

Book:Women and Economics - A Study of the Economic Relation Between Men and Women as a Factor in Social Evolution: From the famous American writer, feminist, social reformer and a respected sociologist who holds an important place in feminist fiction, well-known for her stories The Yellow Wallpaper and Herland

Source: Women and Economics - A Study of the Economic Relation Between Men and Women as a Factor in Social Evolution: From the famous American writer, feminist, social reformer and a respected sociologist who holds an important place in feminist fiction, well-known for her stories The Yellow Wallpaper and Herland

“The mother as a social servant instead of a home servant will not lack in true mother duty. From her work, loved and honored though it is, she will return to her home life, the child life, with an eager, ceaseless pleasure, cleansed of all the fret and fraction and weariness that so mar it now.”

Children Home Mother Social Pleasure Duty Return Servant Mars Honored Fractions Weariness Home Life

Book:Women and Economics

Source: Women and Economics