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There is only one reply to a request for a higher birthrate among the intelligent, and that is to ask the government to first take the burden of the insane and feeble-minded from your back. [Mandatory] sterilization for these is the answer.

Margaret Sanger

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Margaret Sanger
Age: 86 †
Born: 1879
Born: September 14
Died: 1966
Died: September 6
Activist
Feminist
Film Director
Nurse
Sex Columnist
Trade Unionist
Corning
New York
Margaret Higgins
Margaret Higgins Sanger
Margaret Hennessy Higgins
Asks
Minded
Government
Insane
Back
Burden
Firsts
Intelligent
Sterilization
First
Answer
Mandatory
Take
Among
Feeble
Higher
Reply
Answers
Request

More quotes by Margaret Sanger

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Diplomats make it their business to conceal the facts, and politicians violently denounce the politicians of other countries.
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Like begets like. We gather perfect fruit from perfect trees... . Abused soil brings forth stunted growths.
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Couples should be required to submit applications to have a child.
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It is a noteworthy fact that not one of the women to whom I have spoken so far believes in abortion as a practice but it is principle for which they are standing. They also believe that the complete abolition of the abortion law will shortly do away with abortions, as nothing else will.
Margaret Sanger
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Our failure to segregate morons who are increasing and multiplying . . . demonstrates our foolhardy and extravagant sentimentalism.
Margaret Sanger
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As I look back upon my life, I see that every part of it was a preparation for the next. The most trivial of incidents fits into the larger pattern like a mosaic in a preconceived design.
Margaret Sanger
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As often as I have witnessed the miracle [birth], held the perfect creature with its tiny hands and feet, each time I have felt as though I were entering a cathedral with prayer in my heart.
Margaret Sanger
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The real hope of the world lies in putting as painstaking thought into the business of mating as we do into other big businesses.
Margaret Sanger
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I wanted each woman to be a rebellious Vashti, not an Esther.
Margaret Sanger
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Through sex, mankind may attain the great spiritual illumination which will transform the world, which will light up the only path to earthly paradise.
Margaret Sanger
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The undeniably feeble-minded should, indeed, not only be discouraged but prevented from propagating their kind.
Margaret Sanger
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We are paying for and even submitting to the dictates of an ever increasing, unceasingly spawning class of human beings who never should have been born at all-that the wealth of individuals and of state is being diverted from the development and the progress of human expression and civilization.
Margaret Sanger
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I resolved that women should have knowledge of contraception. They have every right to know about their own bodies. I would strikeout--I would scream from the housetops. I would tell the world what was going on in the lives of these poor women. I would be heard. No matter what it should cost. I would be heard.
Margaret Sanger
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No more children should be born when the parents, though healthy themselves, find that their children are physically or mentally defective.
Margaret Sanger
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The most successful educational approach to the Negro is throgh a religious appeal. We do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population, and the Minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members.
Margaret Sanger
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The most merciful thing a large family can do to one of its infant members is to kill it.
Margaret Sanger
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The procreation of [the diseased, the feeble-minded and paupers] should be stopped.
Margaret Sanger
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Organized charity itself is. . . the surest sign that our civilization has bred, is breeding and is perpetuating constantly increasing numbers of defectives, delinquents and dependents
Margaret Sanger
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Birth control is the first important step woman must take toward the goal of her freedom. It is the first step she must take to be man's equal. It is the first step they must both take toward human emancipation.
Margaret Sanger
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Woman must not accept she must challenge. She must not be awed by that which has been built up around her she must reverence that woman in her which struggles for expression.
Margaret Sanger