Frances Wright Quotes

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Frances Wright

Profession : Writer

Birth : September 6, 1795

The hired preachers of all sects, creeds, and religions, never do, and never can, teach any thing but what is in conformity with the opinions of those who pay them.

Frances Wright

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.

Frances Wright

We have seen that no religion stands on the basis of things known; none bounds its horizon within the field of human observation; and, therefore, as it can never present us with indisputable facts, so must it ever be at once a source of error and contention.

Frances Wright

We hear of the wealth of nations, of the powers of production, of the demand and supply of markets, and we forget that these words mean no more, if they mean any thing, then the happiness, and the labor, and the necessities of men.

Frances Wright

If they exert it not for good, they will for evil; if they advance not knowledge, they will perpetuate ignorance.

Frances Wright

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.

Frances Wright

Do we exert our own liberties without injury to others - we exert them justly; do we exert them at the expense of others - unjustly. And, in thus doing, we step from the sure platform of liberty upon the uncertain threshold of tyranny.

Frances Wright

How are men to be secured in any rights without instruction; how to be secured in the equal exercise of those rights without equality of instruction? By instruction understand me to mean knowledge - just knowledge; not talent, not genius, not inventive mental powers.

Frances Wright

The sciences have ever been the surest guides to virtue.

Frances Wright

All that I say is, examine, inquire. Look into the nature of things. Search out the grounds of your opinions, the for and against. Know why you believe, understand what you believe, and possess a reason for the faith that is in you.

Frances Wright

Let us unite on the safe and sure ground of fact and experiment, and we can never err; yet better, we can never differ.

Frances Wright