Quotes by Quaker Women

“We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men and women are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights governments are instituted, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”

“It wasn’t easy because I had a young child and we were separated. I couldn’t hold him in my arms. But I think what kept me going was the belief that I was contributing to something that would change for our people: demanding that we get a better education, demanding that we get the right to vote, demanding that we were citizens in our country. And as somebody who had to overcome not only racial discrimination in my country, but also gender discrimination, we demanded that women should be present in large enough numbers in the peace talks, in the structures that were writing our constitution.”

“We tend to think historically that Friends have been out in front in all areas of social change, the abolition of slavery, rights for women, prison reform, and all the rest, but Margaret Bacon points out in an article that it was only a few Friends who were out in front. The John Woolmans and the Lucretia Motts were very lonely in their own meetings, in their own days, and the Elizabeth Frys also. They were eldered by their meetings and looked on as a little bit too far out for the general populace.”