Elizabeth Cady Stanton Quotes About Atheism

Quotes about: Atheism

• When women understand that governments and religions are human inventions; that Bibles, prayer-books, catechisms, and encyclical letters are all emanations from the brains of man, they will no longer be oppressed by the injunctions that come to them with the divine authority of *Thus sayeth the Lord.*

  Elizabeth Cady Stanton

  Atheist, Prayer, Book

  Elizabeth Cady Stanton (2003). “The Woman's Bible: A Classic Feminist Perspective”, p.8, Courier Corporation

• The happiest people I have known have been those who gave themselves no concern about their own souls, but did their uttermost to mitigate the miseries of others.

  Elizabeth Cady Stanton

  Change, Peace, Ubuntu

  Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1898). “Eighty Years and More: Reminiscences, 1815-1897”, p.385, UPNE

• The Bible and the Church have been the greatest stumbling blocks in the way of women's emancipation.

  Elizabeth Cady Stanton

  Bible, Block, Biblical

• I decline to accept Hebrew mythology as a guide to twentieth-century science.

  Elizabeth Cady Stanton

  Atheism, Hebrew, Accepting

• The bible teaches that women brought sin and death into the world. I don't believe that any man ever talked with god. The bible was written by man out of his love of domination.

  Elizabeth Cady Stanton

  Believe, Men, Religion

• Out of the doctrine of original sin grew the crimes and miseries of asceticism, celibacy and witchcraft; woman becoming the helpless victim of all these delusions.

  Elizabeth Cady Stanton

  Atheism, Doctrine, Asceticism

• Embrace truth as it is revealed to-day by human reason.

  Elizabeth Cady Stanton

  Atheism, Reason, Embrace

• How can any woman believe that a loving and merciful God would, in one breath, command Eve to multiply and replenish the earth, and in the next, pronounce a curse upon her maternity? I do not believe that God inspired the Mosaic code, or gave out the laws about women which he is accused of doing.

  Elizabeth Cady Stanton

  Believe, Law, Atheism

• Women are afraid. It is unpopular to question the bible. They are creatures of tradition. They fear to question their position in the testament, as they feared to advocate suffrage fifty years ago. Now they are quarreling as to which were among the first to advocate it. You see they are not used to abuse as I am. In Albany, fifty years ago, when I went before the legislature to plead for a married woman's right to her own property, the women whom I met in society crossed the street rather than speak to me.

  Elizabeth Cady Stanton

  Years, Abuse, Atheism

• Throughout this protracted and disgraceful assault on American womanhood, the clergy baptized each new insult and act of injustice in the name of the Christian religion, and uniformly asked God's blessing on proceedings that would have put to shame an assembly of Hottentots.

  Elizabeth Cady Stanton

  Christian, Blessing, Names

  Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan Brownell Anthony, Matilda Joslyn Gage, Ida Husted Harper (1889). “History of woman suffrage”

• When I first heard from the lips of Lucretia Mott that I had the same right to think for myself that Luther, Calvin, and John Knox had, and the same right to be guided by my own convictions, and would no doubt live a higher, happier life than if guided by theirs, it was like suddenly coming into the rays of the noon-day sun, after wandering with a rushlight in the caves the earth.

  Elizabeth Cady Stanton

  Thinking, Doubt, Atheism

  Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan Brownell Anthony, Matilda Joslyn Gage, Ida Husted Harper (1889). “History of woman suffrage”

• I have endeavoured to dissipate these religious superstitions from the minds of women, and base their faith on science and reason, where I found for myself at last that peace and comfort I could never find in the Bible and the church.

  Elizabeth Cady Stanton

  Religious, Mind, Atheism

  "The Degraded Status of Woman in the Bible". Free Thought Magazine 14: 540, September 1896.

• My religious superstition gave place to rational ideas based on scientific facts, and in proportion as I looked at everything from a new standpoint, I grew more happy day by day.

  Elizabeth Cady Stanton

  Religious, Ideas, Religion

  Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1898). “Eighty Years and More: Reminiscences, 1815-1897”, p.44, UPNE

• Only those who have lived all their lives under the dark clouds of vague, undefined fears can appreciate the joy of a doubting soul suddenly born into the kingdom of reason and free thought.

  Elizabeth Cady Stanton

  Dark, Clouds, Appreciate

  Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan Brownell Anthony, Ann Dexter Gordon (1997). “The Selected Papers of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony: In the school of anti-slavery, 1840 to 1866”, p.411, Rutgers University Press

• I view it as one of the greatest crimes to shadow the minds of the young with these gloomy superstitions, and with fears of the unknown and the unknowable to poison all their joy in life.

  Elizabeth Cady Stanton

  Views, Joy, Mind

  Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1898). “Eighty Years and More: Reminiscences, 1815-1897”, p.44, UPNE

• Whatever oppressions man has suffered, they have invariably fallen more heavily on woman. Whatever new liberties advancing civilization has brought to man, ever the smallest measure has been accorded to woman, as a result of church teaching. The effect of this is seen in every department of life.

  Elizabeth Cady Stanton

  Teaching, Men, Civilization

• Men can never understand the fear of everlasting punishment that fills the souls of women and children. The orthodox religion, as drawn from the Bible and expounded by the church, is enough to drive the most imaginative and sensitive natures to despair and death.

  Elizabeth Cady Stanton

  Children, Men, Soul

• One remarkable fact stands out in the history of witchcraft; and that is, its victims were chiefly women. Scarce one wizard to a hundred witches was ever burned or tortured.

  Elizabeth Cady Stanton

  Atheism, Wizards, Facts

• I can say that the happiest period of my life has been since I emerged from the shadows and superstitions of the old theologies, relieved from all gloomy apprehensions of the future, satisfied that as my labors and capacities were limited to this sphere of action, I was responsible for nothing beyond my horizon, as I could neither understand nor change the condition of the unknown world. Giving ourselves, then, no trouble about the future, let us make the most of the present, and fill up our lives with earnest work here.

  Elizabeth Cady Stanton

  Unknown Worlds, Giving, Shadow

• I often saw weary little women coming to the table after most exhausting labors, and large, bumptious husbands spreading out their hands and thanking the Lord for the meals that the dear women had prepared, as if the whole came down like manna from heaven. So I preached a sermon in the blessing I gave. You will notice that it has three heresies in it: Heavenly Father and Mother, make us thankful for all the blessings of this life, and make us ever mindful of the patient hands that oft in weariness spread our tables and prepare our daily food. For humanity's sake, Amen.

  Elizabeth Cady Stanton

  Mother, Husband, Father

• How anyone, in view of the protracted sufferings of the race, can invest the laws of the universe with a tender loving fatherly intelligence, watching, guiding and protecting humanity, is to me amazing.

  Elizabeth Cady Stanton

  Race, Views, Law

  Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Harriot (Stanton). Blatch (Mrs) (1922). “Elizabeth Cady Stanton as revealed in her letters, diary and reminiscences”

• A very wise father once remarked, that in the government of his children, he forbid as few things as possible; a wise legislature would do the same. It is folly to make laws on subjects beyond human prerogative, knowing that in the very nature of things they must be set aside. To make laws that man cannot and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt. It is very important in a republic, that the people should respect the laws, for if we throw them to the winds, what becomes of civil government?

  Elizabeth Cady Stanton

  Wise, Children, Father

• I know of no other book that so fully teaches the subjection and degradation of women.

  Elizabeth Cady Stanton

  Book, Atheism, Degradation

  Elizabeth Cady Stanton (2002). “Eighty Years and More: Reminiscences, 1815-1897”

• These teachings in regard to woman so faithfully reflect the provisions of the canon law that it is fair to infer that their inspiration came from the same source, written by men, translated by men, revised by men. If the Bible is to be placed in the hands of our children, read in our schools, taught in our theological seminaries, proclaimed as God's law in our temples of worship, let us by all means call a council of women in New York, and give it one more revision from the woman's standpoint.

  Elizabeth Cady Stanton

  New York, Children, Inspiration

• It is often asserted that woman owes all the advantages of the position she occupies to-day to Christianity, but the facts of history show that the Christian Church has done nothing specifically for woman's elevation. In the general march of civilization, she has necessarily reaped the advantage of man's higher development, but we must not claim for Christianity all that has been achieved by science, discovery and invention.

  Elizabeth Cady Stanton

  Christian, Men, Discovery

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