Quotessence
Home / Authors / Frances Wright Biography
Frances Wright

Frances Wright Biography

Writer

Related Quotes

“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.”

KnowsHumansReasonSeemsChallengesLinesVirtueAtheismMoralitySuitsAspireGuardianImmoralityHuman ReasonEnquiry
Author:Frances Wright
Create image

“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.”

IfsWorldWayGivingMindWellsChildrenMadeSometimesSexWaterPoorStruggleHabitWalkingElementsIndependentMalesDareBelovedThrownAdamTrust MeWrecksInfancyBeloved Friends
Author:Frances Wright
Create image

“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!”

WorldMindBodyTurnsChurchStudyMaterialsFairsAnalysisHallsLeisureExaminationMaterial World
Book:Course of popular lectures; with 3 addresses on various public occasions, and a reply to the charges against the French reformers of 1789
Create image

“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.”

MenHumansKindFallSexLevelsDestinyLowsScalesCultivationKind Man
Book:Course of popular lectures: with three addresses, on various public occasions, and a reply to the charges against the French reformers of 1789
Create image

“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.”

UnderstandingCreationLike YouCreaturesEvidenceRefuseConvictionCreatorSensesNot AfraidAssertionAdmitting
Book:Course of popular lectures; with 3 addresses on various public occasions, and a reply to the charges against the French reformers of 1789
Create image

“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.”

YearsMindStatesChristianHoursChurchUnitedPartyUnited StatesAtheismInfluenceEffectsStandardsFemaleUnionsPositive AtheismEvidentNeglectedChurch And StateClergyFemale Mind
Author:Frances Wright
Create image

“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.”

HouseCitiesStreetsCitizensSatisfactionCleanlinessPhiladelphiaPavementNeatness
Book:Views of society and manners in America: in a series of letters from that country to a friend in England, during the years 1818, 1819, and 1820
Create image

“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.”

WayMindLittlesTwoSinQualityPowerPrideVanityGreat MindsPower Of The Mind
Book:Views of society and manners in America: in a series of letters from that country to a friend in England, during the years 1818, 1819, and 1820
Create image

“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.”

MoralityPromiseThreatTerrorUselessHypocrisyIdleFanaticismDogmatismMischievous
Book:A few days in Athens: being the translation of a Greek manuscript discovered in Herculaneum
Create image

“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!”

WorldMindHumansReasonLyingEvilDarkVirtueIgnoranceRootsBlindMiseryErrorsGuidesHuman MindTremblingFelicityBaneHuman HappinessHuman ReasonPoisoners
Author:Frances Wright
Create image

“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.”

MenFeelsPoliticalGrowthPoorMoralRichHe ManHundredImportanceDollarsPossessionPossessedCentsPursesRich And PoorRatiosSwellingEarthly Possessions
Author:Frances Wright
Create image

“The condition of women affords in all countries the best criterion by which to judge the character of men.”

MenCountryCharacterConditionsJudgingCriteriaCharacter Of A Man
Book:Views of society and manners in America: in a series of letters from that country to a friend in England, during the years 1818, 1819, and 1820
Create image

“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?”

FactsFatherWifeHusbandFairsBoundsCompanionBondage
Book:Course of popular lectures as delivered by Frances Wright: with three addresses on various public occasions, and a reply to the charges against the French reformers of 1789. Second edition
Create image

“... 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!”

MenSelfActionSpiritReligionUnderstandingVirtueOur LivesBrokenThreatDareTalesDeceptionOur ActionsNurseryOur WordsBroken Down
Book:Course of popular lectures as delivered by Frances Wright: with three addresses on various public occasions, and a reply to the charges against the French reformers of 1789. Second edition
Create image

“... 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.”

HumansWarFeelingsActionReligionEvilSourceJudgmentConscienceAnd LoveAngrySakeGentleBarriersInterpretationSuspicionUnjustPersecutionSlanderInconsistentContentionPeace And LoveUnwiseAngry WordsAngry FeelingsBackbiting
Book:Course of popular lectures as delivered by Frances Wright: with three addresses on various public occasions, and a reply to the charges against the French reformers of 1789. Second edition
Create image

“... 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.”

PeopleBookReasonSpiritualCertainReligionTeacherAdviceDoctrineCensorshipSubmitCautionSuspiciousYou AgainClergyProfaneEnquirySpiritual TeachersCounsellors
Book:Course of popular lectures; with 3 addresses on various public occasions, and a reply to the charges against the French reformers of 1789
Create image

“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.”

FirstsFactsScienceCertainReligionKnownKnowledgeAirEvidenceRaisesFoundationDataBranchesSensationsConstructsCastlesPremisesBuilderEdificeCastles In The Air
Author:Frances Wright
Create image

“... 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.”

PeopleGovernmentHappinessObjectsRational
Book:Course of popular lectures; with 3 addresses on various public occasions, and a reply to the charges against the French reformers of 1789
Create image

“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.”

IfsMenWellsLongBookHandsPoliticalLeftReligiousHalfMoralTeacherIgnoranceCollegeGayPrejudiceGravesIncomeBreadServantDependentEditorsProfessorsInstructionJournalCompelledPublicationDaily Bread
Author:Frances Wright
Create image

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

GivingValuesFreedomLibertyBlessingSlaverySlavePenalties
Book:Views of society and manners in America: in a series of letters from that country to a friend in England, during the years 1818, 1819, and 1820
Create image

“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!”

IfsThinkingHeartSeemsOpinionBreakIgnoranceJudgingPrejudiceChainsReasonableConsiderationShrinksUnreasonableHead And HeartSacrilege
Book:Course of popular lectures
Create image

“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.”

PeopleCountryPoorDemocracyRichSubjectsIgnoranceArgumentProfessionPersuasionEmployedVulgarRulingUtilityAristocracyElitismSubordination
Book:Course of popular lectures as delivered by Frances Wright: with three addresses on various public occasions, and a reply to the charges against the French reformers of 1789. Second edition
Create image

“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. If they exert it not for good, they will for evil; if they advance not knowledge, they will perpetuate ignorance. Let women stand where they may in the scale of improvement, their position decides that of the race.”

IfsMayImportantEvilRaceHalfInfluencePositionIgnoranceImprovementScalesVainInfluentialOne HalfPower Of One
Book:Course of popular lectures; with 3 addresses on various public occasions, and a reply to the charges against the French reformers of 1789
Create image

“... 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.”

Would BePleasureImpossibleHigherPaidSurpriseAll TimeEstimationDeference
Book:Views of society and manners in America: in a series of letters from that country to a friend in England, during the years 1818, 1819, and 1820
Create image

“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!”

PeopleLooksCountryMomentsDreamHandsSeemsGovernmentLawVoiceArmsBreathsRoundsSageImposingUtopian
Book:Views of society and manners in America: in a series of letters from that country to a friend in England, during the years 1818, 1819, and 1820
Create image

“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.”

WorldLittlesDreamImaginationJudgment
Book:Course of popular lectures; with 3 addresses on various public occasions, and a reply to the charges against the French reformers of 1789
Create image

“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.”

YearsHumansMatterDreamEarthSpiritBeliefHeavenHuman BeingsFiveDevilAngelYears AgoSensesReasoningFacultyFive SensesAngel And Devil
Book:Course of popular lectures; with 3 addresses on various public occasions, and a reply to the charges against the French reformers of 1789
Create image

“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.”

KnowsBelieveLooksReasonFaithOpinion
Book:Course of popular lectures; with 3 addresses on various public occasions, and a reply to the charges against the French reformers of 1789
Create image