Ellen Swallow Richards Quotes

Home Economics stands for the ideal home life for today unhampered by the traditions of the past and the utilization of all the resources of modern science to improve home life.

You cannot make women contented with cooking and cleaning and you need not try.

If you keep your feathers well oiled the water of criticism will run off as from a duck's back.

The unwilling mind is not a teachable mind.

One of the greatest faults of the women of the present time is a silly fear of things, and one object of the education of girls should be to give them knowledge of what things are really dangerous.

Subject the material world to the higher ends by understanding it in all its relations to daily life and action.

New England is the home of all that is good and noble with all her sternness and uncompromising opinions.

...all enjoyment is dependent upon the frailty of human life and human desires ... if we were to have all we want and to live forever, all enjoyment would be gone.

I hope that I am winning a way which others will keep open.

I had been in the hurrying waters too long not to appreciate an opportunity to lie on the bank and rest, watch others, and gain strength for the coming years.

The world moves, but we seem to move with it. When I studied physiology beforethere were two hundred and eight bones in the body. Now there are two hundred and thirty- eight.

The Faculty [of Vassar] do not consider it a mere experiment any longer that girls can be educated as well as boys.

I prefer surveying for a week to spending a week in fashionable society even of the best class.

We never can tell how our lives may work to the account of the general good, and we are not wise enough to know if we have fulfilled our mission or not.

Work is a sovereign remedy for all ills, and a man who loves to work will never be unhappy.

It is cruelty to children to keep five-year-olds sitting still, gazing into vacancy even for one hour at a time. We have little idea of the torture we thus inflict.

A sense of power is the most intoxicating stimulant a mortal can enjoy.

I am succeeding quite well in my work and the future looks well. What special mission is God preparing me for? Cutting off all earthly ties and isolating me as it were.

If it is a relief to take your clothes off at night, be sure that something is wrong. Clothes should not be a burden. They shouldbe a comfort and a protection.

A political place with no power, only influence, is not to my taste.

I wish the women's rights folks would be more sensible. I think women have a great deal to learn, before they are fit to vote.

The most conventional customs cling to the table. Farmers who wouldn't drive a horse too hard expect pie three times a day.