Quotessence
Home / Authors / Jane Addams
Jane Addams

Jane Addams Quotes

Sociologist

Filter quotes by topic

AllHull HouseMenSocialHumansIfsMayMoralBelieveDemocracyMadePeopleJusticeSocial JusticeCitiesCommonDifficultyEffortFailingKnowsMorality

Famous Jane Addams Quotes

“What is a great man who has made his mark upon history? Every time, if we think far enough, he is a man who has looked through the confusion of the moment and has seen the moral issue involved; he is a man who has refused to have his sense of justice distorted; he has listened to his conscience until conscience becomes a trumpet call to like-minded men, so that they gather about him, and together, with mutual purpose and mutual aid, they make a new period in history.”

IfsThinkingMenMadeEnoughMomentsTogetherPurposeJusticeMoralHistoryIssuesInvolvedPeriodsConscienceMarkAidsConfusionGreat MenMutualTrumpetsMoral IssuesMutual Aid
Author:Jane Addams
Create image

“We all know that each generation has its own test, the contemporaneous and current standard by which alone it can adequately judge of its own moral achievements, and that it may not legitimately use a previous and less vigorous test. The advanced test must indeed include that which has already been attained; but if it includes no more, we shall fail to go forward, thinking complacently that we have "arrived" when in reality we have not yet started.”

IfsThinkingKnowsMayUseRealityMoralProgressFailingGenerationsJudgingAchievementStandardsTestsCurrentsVigorousForward Thinking
Book:Democracy and Social Ethics
Create image

“The task of youth is not only its own salvation but the salvation of those against whom it rebels, but in that case there must be something vital to rebel against and if the elderly stiffly refuse to put up a vigorous front of their own, it leaves the entire situation in a mist.”

IfsSituationCasesFrontsYouthTasksSalvationRefuseRebelElderlyMistVigorous
Book:The second twenty years at Hull-House, September 1909 to September 1929, with a record of a growing world consciousness
Create image

“If the underdog were always right, one might quite easily try to defend him. The trouble is that very often he is but obscurely right, sometimes only partially right, and often quite wrong; but perhaps he is never so altogether wrong and pig-headed and utterly reprehensible as he is represented to be by those who add the possession of prejudices to the other almost insuperable difficulties of understanding him.”

IfsTryingSometimesMightUnderstandingTroubleDifficultyPrejudiceAddPossessionPigsUnderdogUnderstanding Him
Book:Twenty Years at Hull-House, with Autobiographical Notes, by Jane Addams. With a Foreword by Henry Steele Commager, Drawings by Norah Hamilton
Create image

“What after all, has maintained the human race on this old globe despite all the calamities of nature and all the tragic failings of mankind, if not faith in new possibilities, and courage to advocate them. Doubtless many times these new possibilities were declared by a man who, quite unconscious of courage, bore the "sense of being an exile, a condemned criminal, a fugitive from mankind." Did every one so feel who, in order to travel on his own proper path had been obliged to leave the traditional highway?”

IfsMenFeelsHumansOrderRacePathFailingMankindPossibilityCriminalsTraditionalDespiteHuman RaceUnconsciousTragicBoresGlobesHighwaysExileObligedCalamityFugitiveNew Possibilities
Book:Peace and Bread in Time of War
Create image

“Perhaps I may record here my protest against the efforts, so often made, to shield children and young people from all that has to do with death and sorrow, to give them a good time at all hazards on the assumption that the ills of life will come soon enough. Young people themselves often resent this attitude on the part of their elders; they feel set aside and belittled as if they were denied the common human experiences.”

PeopleIfsGivingFeelsHumansMayChildrenMadeEnoughYoungCommonEffortAttitudeRecordsSorrowAssumptionGood TimesProtestDeniedHuman ExperienceEldersShieldsResentHazardsSoon Enough
Book:Twenty Years at Hull-House: With Autobiographical Notes
Create image

“I might believe I had unusual talent if I did not know what good music was; I might enjoy half an hour's practice a day if I were busy and happy the rest of the time. You do not know what life means when all the difficulties are removed! I am simply smothered and sickened with advantages. It is like eating a sweet dessert the first thing in the morning.”

IfsKnowsFirstsBelieveMeanMightEnjoyHoursHalfPracticeMorningTalentSweetEatingAdvantageDifficultyBusyUnusualDessertLife Means
Author:Jane Addams
Create image