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... the happiness of a people is the only rational object of government, and the only object for which a people, free to choose, can have a government at all.

Frances Wright

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Frances Wright
Age: 57 †
Born: 1795
Born: September 6
Died: 1852
Died: December 13
Philosopher
Writer
City of Dundee
Frances D'Arusmont
Objects
Choose
Happiness
Free
Government
People
Rational
Object

More quotes by Frances Wright

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He who lives in the single exercise of his mental faculties, however usefully or curiously directed, is equally an imperfect animal with the man who knows only the exercise of muscles.
Frances Wright
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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
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the language of truth is too simple for inexperienced ears.
Frances Wright
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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
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Credulity is always a ridiculous, often a dangerous failing: it has made of many a clever man, a fool and of many a good man, a knave.
Frances Wright
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Trust me, there are as many ways of living as there are men, and one is no more fit to lead another, than a bird to lead a fish, or a fish a quadruped.
Frances Wright
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Truth is but approved facts.
Frances Wright
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... your spiritual teachers caution you against enquiry--tell you not to read certain books not to listen to certain people to beware of profane learning to submit your reason, and to receive their doctrines for truths. Such advice renders them suspicious counsellors.
Frances Wright
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Equality is the soul of liberty there is, in fact, no liberty without it.
Frances Wright
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... so far from entrenching human conduct within the gentle barriers of peace and love, religion has ever been, and now is, the deepest source of contentions, wars, persecutions for conscience sake, angry words, angry feelings, backbitings, slanders, suspicions, false judgments, evil interpretations, unwise, unjust, injurious, inconsistent actions.
Frances Wright
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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
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The knowledge of one generation is the ignorance of the next.
Frances Wright
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Moral truth, resting entirely upon the ascertained consequences of actions, supposes a process of observation and reasoning.
Frances Wright
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Instead of establishing facts, we have to overthrow errors instead of ascertaining what is, we have to chase from our imaginations what is not.
Frances Wright
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Do not confound noise with fame. The man who is remembered, is not always honored.
Frances Wright
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No man can see his own prejudices.
Frances Wright
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Fathers and husbands! do ye not also understand this fact? Do ye not see how, in the mental bondage of your wives and fair companions, ye yourselves are bound?
Frances Wright
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Be not afraid! In admitting a creator, refuse not to examine his creation and take not the assertions of creatures like yourselves, in place of the evidence of your senses and the conviction of your understanding.
Frances Wright
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... a nation to be strong, must be united to be united, must be equal in condition to be equal in condition, must be similar inhabits and feeling to be similar in habits and feeling, must be raised in national institutions as the children of a common family, and citizens of a common country.
Frances Wright
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Love of power more frequently originates in vanity than pride (two qualities, by the way, which are often confounded) and is, consequently, yet more peculiarly the sin of little than of great minds.
Frances Wright