Frances Wright

“However novel it may appear, I shall venture the assertion, that, until women assume the place in society which good sense and good feeling alike assign to them, human improvement must advance but feebly.”

“Look into the nature of things. Search out the grounds of your opinions, the for and against.”

“Man has been adjudged a social animal.”

“And when did mere preaching do any good? Put something in the place of these things. Fill the vacuum of the mind.”

“Know why you believe, understand what you believe, and possess a reason for the faith that is in you.”

“We hear of the wealth of nations, of the powers of production, of the demand and supply of markets, and we forget that these words mean no more, if they mean any thing, then the happiness, and the labor, and the necessities of men.”

“How are men to be secured in any rights without instruction; how to be secured in the equal exercise of those rights without equality of instruction? By instruction understand me to mean knowledge - just knowledge; not talent, not genius, not inventive mental powers.”

“The sciences have ever been the surest guides to virtue.”

“If they exert it not for good, they will for evil; if they advance not knowledge, they will perpetuate ignorance.”

“Equality is the soul of liberty; there is, in fact, no liberty without it.”

“Pets, like their owners, tend to expand a little over the Christmas period.”

“There is but one honest limit to the rights of a sentient being; it is where they touch the rights of another sentient being.”

“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.”

“But while human liberty has engaged the attention of the enlightened, and enlisted the feelings of the generous of all civilized nations, may we not enquire if this liberty has been rightly understood?”