It Irritates Me To Be Told How

An Institution Or Reform Movement That Is Not Selfish, Must Originate In The Recognition Of Some Evil That Is Adding To The Sum Of Human Suffering, Or Diminishing The Sum Of Happiness.

What Could I Do But Go With Them Civil War Soldiers, Or Work For Them And My Country? The Patriot Blood Of My Father Was Warm In My Veins.

I Have An Almost Complete Disregard Of Precedent, And A Faith In The Possibility Of Something Better. It Irritates Me To Be Told How Things Have Always Been Done. I Defy The Tyranny Of Precedent. I Go For Anything New That Might Improve The Past.

My Business Is Staunching Blood, And Feeding Fainting Men.

If Woman Alone Had Suffered Under These Mistaken Traditions [of Women's Subordination], If She Could Have Borne The Evil By Herself, It Would Have Been Less Pitiful, But Her Brother Man, In The Laws He Created And Ignorantly Worshipped, Has Suffered With Her. He Has Lost Her Highest Help; He Has Crippled The Intelligence He Needed; He Has Belittled The Very Source Of His Own Being And Dwarfed The Image Of His Maker.