Frances Wright Quotes
Credulity is always a ridiculous, often a dangerous failing: it has made of many a clever man, a fool; and of many a good man, a knave.
Equality! Where is it, if not in education? Equal rights! They cannot exist without equality of instruction.
Moral truth, resting entirely upon the ascertained consequences of actions, supposes a process of observation and reasoning.
Instead of establishing facts, we have to overthrow errors; instead of ascertaining what is, we have to chase from our imaginations what is not.
... 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.
These will vary in every human being; but knowledge is the same for every mind, and every mind may and ought to be trained to receive it.
Trust me, there are as many ways of living as there are men, and one is no more fit to lead another, than a bird to lead a fish, or a fish a quadruped.
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.
The best road to correct reasoning is by physical science; the way to trace effects to causes is through physical science; the only corrective, therefore, of superstition is physical science.
There is but one honest limit to the rights of a sentient being; it is where they touch the rights of another sentient being.
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.
Religion may be defined thus: a belief in, and homage rendered to, existences unseen and causes unknown.
He who lives in the single exercise of his mental faculties, however usefully or curiously directed, is equally an imperfect animal with the man who knows only the exercise of muscles.
the mode of delivering a truth makes, for the most part, as much impression on the mind of the listener as the truth itself.
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?
Of the thousands who have paid homage to virtue, barely one has thought to inspect the pedestal on which it stands.
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.
Many are called impious, not for having a worse, but a different religion from their neighbors; and many atheistical, not for the denying of God, but for thinking somewhat peculiarly concerning him.
You have heard of, and studied various systems of philosophy; but real philosophy is opposed to all systems.
To give liberty to a slave before he understands its value is, perhaps, rather to impose a penalty than to bestow a blessing.
I am neither Jew nor Gentile, Mahomedan nor Theist; I am but a member of the human family.
The condition of women affords in all countries the best criterion by which to judge the character of men.
The simplest principles become difficult of practice, when habits, formed in error, have been fixed by time, and the simplest truths hard to receive when prejudice has warped the mind.
Know why you believe, understand what you believe, and possess a reason for the faith that is in you.
