I will work in my own way, according to the light that is in me. - Lydia Maria Child

I was gravely warned by some of my female acquaintances that no woman could expect to be regarded as a lady after she had written a book.

I keep working because I am quite sure that no particle of goodness or truth is ever really lost, however appearances may be to the contrary.

There was a time when all these things would have passed me by, like the flitting figures of a theatre, sufficient for the amusement of an hour. But now, I have lost the power of looking merely on the surface. Everything seems to me to come from the Infinite, to be filled with the Infinite, to be tending toward the Infinite. Do I see crowds of men hastening to extinguish a fire? I see not merely uncouth garbs, and fantastic, flickering lights, of lurid hue, like a trampling troop of gnomes—but straightway my mind is filled with thoughts about mutual helpfulness, human sympathy, the common bond of brotherhood, and the mysteriously deep foundations on which society rests; or rather, on which it now reels and totters.