Quotes from Susan B. Anthony

Sooner or later we all discover that the important moments of life are not the advertised ones, not the birthdays, the graduations, the weddings, the great goals achieved. The real milestones are less prepossessing. They come to the door of memory unannounced, stray dogs that amble in, sniff around a bit and simply never leave. Our lives are measured by these.

It was we, the people, not we, the white male citizens, nor yet we, the male citizens, but we, the whole people, who formed this Union. And we formed it, not to give the blessings of liberty, but to secure them; not to the half of ourselves and the half of our posterity, but to the whole people–women as well as men.

Cautious, careful people always casting about to preserve their reputation or social standards never can bring about reform. Those who are really in earnest are willing to be anything or nothing in the world's estimation, and publicly and privately, in season and out, avow their sympathies with despised ideas and their advocates, and bear the consequences.

Women, we might as well be dogs baying the moon as petitioners without the right to vote!

Organize, agitate, educate, must be our war cry.

I have encountered riotous mobs and have been hung in effigy, but my motto is: Men's rights are nothing more. Women's rights are nothing less.

Oh, if I could but live another century and see the fruition of all the work for women! There is so much yet to be done.

Trust me that as I ignore all law to help the slave, so will I ignore it all to protect an enslaved woman.

Here, in the first paragraph of the Declaration [of Independence], is the assertion of the natural right of all to the ballot; for how can "the consent of the governed" be given, if the right to vote be denied?

The men and women of the North are slaveholders, those of the South slaveowners. The guilt rests on the North equally with the South.

The older I get, the greater power I seem to have to help the world I am like a snowball - the further I am rolled the more I gain.

Resolved, that the women of this nation in 1876, have greater cause for discontent, rebellion and revolution than the men of 1776.

I always distrust people who know so much about what God wants them to do to their fellows.

I don't want to die as long as I can work the minute I can not, I want to go.

Make [your employers] understand that you are in their service as workers, not as women.

I shall earnestly and persistently continue to urge all women to the practical recognition of the old Revolutionary maxim. Resistance to tyranny is obedience to God.

If all the rich and all of the church people should send their children to the public schools they would feel bound to concentrate their money on improving these schools until they met the highest ideals.

Sooner or later we all discover that the important moments in life are not the advertised ones, not the birthdays, the graduations, the weddings, not the great goals achieved. The real milestones are less prepossessing. They come to the door of memory.

Cautious, careful people, always casting about to preserve their reputation and social standing, never can bring about a reform.

Oh, yes. I'd do it all again; the spirit is willing yet; I feel the same desire to do the work but the flesh is weak. It's too bad that our bodies wear out while our interests are just as strong as ever.

Independence is happiness.

Woman must not depend upon the protection of man, but must be taught to protect herself.

To be wedded to an idea may be, after all, the holiest and happiest of marriages.

I do not assume that woman is better than man. I do assume that she has a different way of looking at things.