The work of woman is not to lessen the severity or the certainty of the penalty for the violation of the moral law, but to prevent this violation by the removal of the causes which lead to it.
Oh, yes. I'd do it all again; the spirit is willing yet; I feel the same desire to do the work but the flesh is weak. It's too bad that our bodies wear out while our interests are just as strong as ever.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote reflects on the conflict between our enduring passions and the physical limitations of our bodies.
In this quote, Susan B. Anthony expresses a poignant truth about the human experience: while our desires and motivations remain strong throughout our lives, our physical capabilities diminish with age. This brings forth a sense of longing as one realizes that the spirit is eager to engage in life's work, yet the body often fails to keep pace, highlighting the bittersweet nature of aging and the perseverance of ambition despite physical decline.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used to inspire older adults to continue pursuing their passions despite physical limitations.
More from Susan B. Anthony
All quotes βThe only question left to be settled now is: Are women persons? And I hardly believe any of our opponents will have the hardihood to say they are not.
I have given my life and all I am to it, and now I want my last act to be to give it all I have, to the last cent.
The day will come when men will recognize woman as his peer, not only at the fireside, but in councils of the nation. Then, and not until then, will there be the perfect comradeship, the ideal union between the sexes that shall result in the highest development of the race.
Sooner or later we all discover that the important moments in life are not the advertised ones, not the birthdays, the graduations, the weddings, not the great goals achieved. The real milestones are less prepossessing. They come to the door of memory unannounced, stray dogs that amble in, sniff around a bit and simply never leave. Our lives are measured by these.
We ask justice, we ask equality, we ask that all the civil and political rights that belong to citizens of the United States, be guaranteed to us and our daughters forever.
Similar quotes
My mother, Abra, had taught me that all people are made from the same dust. When our days here are gone, all men and women enter the same garden.
When we dehumanise and demonise our opponents, we abandon the possibility of peacefully resolving our differences, and seek to justify violence against them.
Productiveness is your acceptance of morality, your recognition of the fact that you choose to live.
Some people, both scientists and religious people, deal with uncertainty by being certain. That is dangerous in the fundamentalists and it is dangerous in the fundamentalist scientists.
I would do what I pleased, and doing what I pleased, I should have my will, and having my will, I should be contented; and when one is contented, there is no more to be desired; and when there is no more to be desired, there is an end of it.
The greater the mental charlatan, the more definite his insistence on the wickedness and weaknesses of human nature. Yet how can anyone speak of it today, with every soul in a prison, with every heart fettered, wounded, and maimed?... With human nature caged in a narrow space, whipped daily into submission, how can we speak of its potentialities?