Quotes & anectdotes from
the wise,
the foolish,
the courageous &
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Susan B. Anthony Activist

  • Gender: Female
  • Citizenship: United States
  • Born: Feb 15, 1820
  • Died: Mar 13, 1906

Susan Brownell Anthony was an American social reformer who played a pivotal role in the women's suffrage movement. Born into a Quaker family committed to social equality, she collected anti-slavery petitions at the age of 17. In 1856, she became the New York state agent for the American Anti-Slavery Society.

In 1851, she met Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who became her lifelong friend and co-worker in social reform activities, primarily in the field of women's rights. In 1852, they founded the New York Women's State Temperance Society after Anthony was prevented from speaking at a temperance conference because she was a woman. In 1863, they founded the Women's Loyal National League, which conducted the largest petition drive in the nation's history up to that time, collecting nearly 400,000 signatures in support of the abolition of slavery. In 1866, they initiated the American Equal Rights Association, which campaigned for equal rights for both women and African Americans. In 1868, they began publishing a women's rights newspaper called The Revolution. In 1869, they founded the National Woman Suffrage Association as part of a split in the women's movement.

Failure is impossible.

Resolved, that the women of this nation in 1876, have greater cause for discontent, rebellion and revolution than the men of 1776.

I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do, because I notice it always coincides with their own desires.

Oh, if I could but live another century and see the fruition of all the work for women! There is so much yet to be done.

No man is good enough to govern any woman without her consent.

Independence is happiness.

Organize, agitate, educate, must be our war cry.

I always distrust people who know so much about what God wants them to do to their fellows.

Trust me that as I ignore all law to help the slave, so will I ignore it all to protect an enslaved woman.

Women, we might as well be dogs baying the moon as petitioners without the right to vote!

I don't want to die as long as I can work the minute I can not, I want to go.

The older I get, the greater power I seem to have to help the world I am like a snowball - the further I am rolled the more I gain.

Men, their rights, and nothing more women, their rights, and nothing less.

Join the union, girls, and together say Equal Pay for Equal Work.