Frances Ellen Watkins Harper Quotes

I envy neither the heart nor the head of any legislator who has been born to an inheritance of privileges, who has behind him ages of education, dominion, civilization, and Christianity, if he stands opposed to the passage of a national education bill, whose purpose is to secure education to the children of those who were born under the shadow of institutions which made it a crime to read.

In coming into her political estate woman will find a mass of illiteracy to be dispelled. If knowledge is power, ignorance is also power.

More than the changing of institutions we need the development of a national conscience, and the upbuilding of national character. Men may boast of the aristocracy of blood, may glory in the aristocracy of talent, and be proud of the aristocracy of wealth, but there is one aristocracy which must ever outrank them all, and that is the aristocracy of character

As the saffron tints and crimson flushes of morn herald the coming day, so the social and political advancement which woman has already gained bears the promise of the rising of the full-orbed sun of emancipation. The result will be not to make home less happy, but society more holy; yet I do not think the mere extension of the ballot a panacea for all the ills of our national life. What we need to-day is not simply more voters, but better voters.

Through weary, wasting years men have destroyed, dashed in pieces, and overthrown, but to-day we stand on the threshold of woman's era, and woman's work is grandly constructive. In her hand are possibilities whose use or abuse must tell upon the political life of the nation, and send their influence for good or evil across the track of unborn ages.

If the fifteenth century discovered America to the Old World, the nineteenth is discovering woman to herself.

So close is the bond between man and woman that you can not raise one without lifting the other. The world can not move without woman's sharing in the movement.

The truly polite woman has no snub in her voice nor scorn upon her lips for those who occupy a lower social grade than herself. Nor will she thoughtlessly and carelessly shut the door of opportunity in the face of any one who is striving to rise in the scale of character, and build, over a sad past, more stately temples of thought and action. True politeness is consistent with perfect sincerity. If we are true to ourselves, we cannot be false to others. "I will tell this story,' said a person in the presence of General Grant, "as there are no ladies present." "But," replied the general, "there are gentlemen here." The man who could crush down defeat and organize victories had the manly politeness to guard the ears of others from being assaulted by unbecoming words.

One hundred years ago and Africa was the privileged hunting-ground of Europe and America, and the flag of different nations hung a sign of death on the coasts of Congo and Guinea, and for years unbroken silence had hung around the horrors of the African slave-trade.