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As To Ethics, Unfortunately, We Are Still At Sea. We Never Did Have Any Popular Base For What Little Ethics We Knew, Except The Religious Theories, And Now That Our Faith Is Shaken In Those Theories We Cannot Account For Ethics At All. It Is No Wonder We Behave Badly, We Are Literally Ignorant Of The Laws Of Ethics, Which Is The Simplest Of Sciences, The Most Necessary, The Most Continuously Needed. The Childish Misconduct Of Our 'revolted Youth' Is Quite Equaled By That Of Older People, And Neither Young Nor Old Seem To Have Any Understanding Of The Reasons Why Conduct Is 'good' Or 'bad.

-Charlotte Perkins Gilman

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As To Ethics, Unfortunately,

Charlotte Perkins Gilman

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As To Ethics, Unfortunately, We Are Still At Sea. We Never Did Have Any Popular Base For What Little Ethics We Knew, Except The Religious Theories, And Now That Our Faith Is Shaken In Those Theories We Cannot Account For Ethics At All. It Is No Wonder We Behave Badly, We Are Literally Ignorant Of The Laws Of Ethics, Which Is The Simplest Of Sciences, The Most Necessary, The Most Continuously Needed. The Childish Misconduct Of Our 'revolted Youth' Is Quite Equaled By That Of Older People, And Neither Young Nor Old Seem To Have Any Understanding Of The Reasons Why Conduct Is 'good' Or 'bad.

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There Should Be An End To The Bitterness Of Feeling Which Has Arisen Between The Sexes In This Century.

A Man's Honor Always Seems To Want To Kill A Woman To Satisfy It.

So When The Great Word "mother!" Rang Once More, I Saw At Last Its Meaning And Its Place; Not The Blind Passion Of The Brooding Past, But Mother -- The World's Mother -- Come At Last, To Love As She Had Never Loved Before -- To Feed And Guard And Teach The Human Race.

To Work Is Not Only A Right, It Is A Duty. To Work To The Full Capacity Of One's Powers Is Necessary For Human Development - The Full Use Of One's Best Faculties - This Is The Health And Happiness For Both Man And Woman.

Habits Of Thought Persist Through The Centuries; And While A Healthy Brain May Reject The Doctrine It No Longer Believes, It Will Continue To Feel The Same Sentiments Formerly Associated With That Doctrine.

Now Why Should That Man Have Fainted? But He Did,and Right Across My Path By The Wall, So That I Had To Creep Over Him Every Time!

Exciting Literature After Supper Is Not The Best Digestive.

Where Young Boys Plan For What They Will Achieve And Attain, Young Girls Plan For Whom They Will Achieve And Attain.

It Is The Same Woman, I Know, For She Is Always Creeping, And Most Women Do Not Creep By Daylight.

If A Woman Is Really Injured By Her Marriage, She Should Sue Under The Employer Liability Act. She Should Claim Damages--not Alimony.

Until We See What We Are, We Cannot Take Steps To Become What We Should Be.

As To Ethics, Unfortunately, We Are Still At Sea. We Never Did Have Any Popular Base For What Little Ethics We Knew, Except The Religious Theories, And Now That Our Faith Is Shaken In Those Theories We Cannot Account For Ethics At All. It Is No Wonder We Behave Badly, We Are Literally Ignorant Of The Laws Of Ethics, Which Is The Simplest Of Sciences, The Most Necessary, The Most Continuously Needed. The Childish Misconduct Of Our 'revolted Youth' Is Quite Equaled By That Of Older People, And Neither Young Nor Old Seem To Have Any Understanding Of The Reasons Why Conduct Is 'good' Or 'bad.

What Would Have Been The Effect Upon Religion If It Had Come To Us Through The Minds Of Women?

To Attain Happiness In Another World We Need Only To Believe Something, While To Secure It In This World We Must Do Something.

Through It [literature] We Know The Past, Govern The Present, And Influence The Future.

It Is Dull Enough To Confuse The Eye In Following, Pronounced Enough To Constantly Irritate And Provoke Study, And When You Follow The Lame Uncertain Curves For A Little Distance They Suddenly Commit Suicide—plunge Off At Outrageous Angles, Destroy Themselves In Unheard Of Contradictions.

The Home Is A Human Institution. All Human Institutions Are Open To Improvement.

I Do Not Want To Be A Fly,i Want To Be A Worm!

There's Heaven. There It Is. What More Do We Mean? People, Free To Come Together, And In Beauty - For Growth.

I Ran Against A Prejudice That Quite Cut Off The View.

Architecture Might Be More Sportive And Varied If Every Man Built His Own House, But It Would Not Be The Art And Science That We Have Made It; And While Every Woman Prepares Food For Her Own Family, Cooking Can Never Rise Beyond The Level Of The Amateur's Work.

Specialization And Organization Are The Basis Of Human Progress.

The Time Is Approaching When We Shall Consider It Abhorrent To Our Civilization To Allow A Human Being To Die In Prolonged Agony Which We Should Mercifully End In Any Other Creature.

I Have Preferred Chloroform To Cancer

All Social Relations Exist And Grow In The Human Mind. That One Despot Can Rule Over A Million Other Men Rests Absolutely On Their State Of Mind. They Believe That He Does; Let Them Change Their Minds, And He Does Not.

The Mother As A Social Servant Instead Of A Home Servant Will Not Lack In True Mother Duty. From Her Work, Loved And Honored Though It Is, She Will Return To Her Home Life, The Child Life, With An Eager, Ceaseless Pleasure, Cleansed Of All The Fret And Fraction And Weariness That So Mar It Now.

The Stony-minded Orthodox Were Right In Fearing The First Movement Of New Knowledge And Free Thought. It Has Gone On, And Will Go On, Irresistibly, Until Some Day We Shall Have No Respect For An Alleged "truth" Which Cannot Stand The Full Blaze Of Knowledge, The Full Force Of Active Thought.

For Men Obsessed With Women's Underwear, A Course In Washing, Ironing And Mending Is Recommended.

The Religious Need Of The Human Mind Remains Alive, Never More So, But It Demands A Teaching Which Can Be Understood. Slowly An Apprehension Of The Intimate, Usable Power Of God Is Growing Among Us, And A Growing Recognition Of The Only Worth-while Application Of That Power-in The Improvement Of The World.

Death Is The Essential Condition Of Life, Not An Evil.

We All Need One Another; Much And Often. Just As Every Human Creature Needs A Place To Be Alone In, A Sacred, Private "home" Of His Own, So All Human Creatures Need A Place To Be Together In, From The Two Who Can Show Each Other Their Souls Uninterruptedly, To The Largest Throng That Can Throb And Stir In Unison.

However, One Cannot Put A Quart In A Pint Cup.

A Normal Feminine Influence In Recasting Our Religious Assumptions Will Do More Than Any Other One Thing To Improve The World.

There Are Things In That Paper That Nobody Knows But Me, Or Ever Will.

Only As We Live, Think, Feel, And Work Outside The Home, Do We Become Humanly Developed, Civilized, Socialized.

The World Is Quite Right. It Does Not Have To Be Consistent.

The Children In This Country Are The One Center And Focus Of All Our Thoughts. Every Step Of Our Advance Is Always Considered In Its Effect On Them-on The Race. You See, We Are Mothers, She Repeated, As If In That She Had Said It All.

To Be Surrounded By Beautiful Things Has Much Influence Upon The Human Creature; To Make Beautiful Things Has More.

It Is Not That Women Are Really Smaller-minded, Weaker-minded, More Timid And Vacillating, But That Whosoever, Man Or Woman, Lives Always In A Small, Dark Place, Is Always Guarded, Protected, Directed And Restrained, Will Become Inevitably Narrowed And Weakened By It.

Never In All Her Life Had She Imagined That This Idolized Millinery Could Look, To Those Who Paid For It, Like The Decorations Of An Insane Monkey.

Maternal Instinct, Merely As An Instinct, Is Unworthy Of Our Superstitious Reverence.

What We Do Modifies Us More Than What Is Done To Us.

Legitimate Sex-competition Brings Out All That Is Best In Man.

In Business Life, That Is, In Its Material Processes, We Eagerly Accept The New. In Social Life, In All Our Social Processes, We Piously, Valiantly, Obdurately, Maintain The Old.

Not Woman, But The Condition Of Woman, Has Always Been A Doorway Of Evil.

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One Religion After Another Has Accepted And Perpetuated Man's Original Mistake In Making A Private Servant Of The Mother Of The Race.

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The Most Familiar Facts Are Often Hardest To Understand.

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The Difference Is Great Between One's Outside "life," The Things Which Happen To One, Incidents, Pains And Pleasures, And One's "living."

A House Does Not Need A Wife Any More Than It Needs A Husband.

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The Best Proof Of Man's Dissatisfaction With The Home Is Found In His Universal Absence From It.

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The Female Of Genus Homo Is Economically Dependent On The Male. He Is Her Food Supply.

A Concept Is Stronger Than A Fact.

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Many Years Later I Was Told That The Great Specialist Had Admitted To Friends Of His That He Had Altered His Treatment Of Neurasthenia Since Reading The Yellow Wallpaper.it Was Not Intended To Drive People Crazy, But To Save People From Being Driven Crazy, And It Worked.

In Our Steady Insistence On Proclaiming Sex-distinction We Have Grown To Consider Most Human Attributes As Masculine Attributes, For The Simple Reason That They Were Allowed To Men And Forbidden To Women.

Fine Blunderers In Ethics We Are, So Generally Conveying To Children The Basic Impression That Pleasantness Must Be Wrong, And Right Doing Unpleasant!

The People People Have For Friends Your Common Sense Appall But The People People Marry Are The Queerest Folk Of All.

The First Duty Of A Human Being Is To Assume The Right Functional Relationship To Society - More Briefly, To Find Your Real Job, And Do It.

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In A Sick Society, Women Who Have Difficulty Fitting In Are Not Ill But Demonstrating A Healthy And Positive Response.

There Was A Time When Patience Ceased To Be A Virtue. It Was Long Ago.

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We Are Pushed Forward By The Social Forces, Reluctant And Stumbling, Our Faces Over Our Shoulders, Clutching At Every Relic Of The Past As We Are Forced Along; Still Adoring Whatever Is Behind Us. We Insist Upon Worshipping 'the God Of Our Fathers.' Why Not The God Of Our Children? Does Eternity Only Stretch One Way?

Grateful Return For Happiness Conferred Is Not The Method Of Exchange In A Partnership. The Comfort A Man Takes With His Wife Is Not In The Nature Of A Business Partnership, Nor Are Her Frugality And Industry.

It Is The Duty Of Youth To Bring Fresh New Powers To Bear On Social Progress. Each Generation Of Young People Should Be To The World Like A Vast Reserve Force To A Tired Army. They Should Life The World Forward. That Is What They Are For.

But Reason Has No Power Against Feeling, And Feeling Older Than History Is No Light Matter.

Until Mothers Earn Their Livings, Women Will Not

The Mother- Poor Invaded Soul- Finds Even The Bathroom Door No Bar To Hammering Little Hands.

I Used To Lie Awake As A Child And Get More Entertainment And Terror Out Of Blank Walls And Plain Furniture Than Most Children Could Find In A Toy-store.

The Fact That Women In The Home Have Shut Themselves Away From The Thought And Life Of The World Has Done Much To Retard Progress.we Fill The World With The Children Of 20th Century A.d. Fathers And 20th Century B.c. Mothers.

I Was Climbing Up A Mountain-path With Many Things To Do, Important Business Of My Own, And Other People's Too, When I Ran Against A Prejudice That Quite Cut Off The View.

Let Us Inquire What Glory There Was In An Omnipotent Being Torturing Forever A Puny Little Creature Who Could In No Way Defend Himself? Would It Be To The Glory Of A Man To Fry Ants?

This Is The Woman's Century, The First Chance For The Mother Of The World To Rise To Her Full Place . . . And The World Waits While She Powders Her Nose.

The Child Learns More Of The Virtues Needed In Modern Life-of Fairness, Of Justice, Of Comradeship, Of Collective Interest And Action-in A Common School Than Can Be Taught In The Most Perfect Family Circle

To Swallow And Follow, Whether Old Doctrine Or New Propaganda, Is A Weakness Still Dominating The Human Mind.

To Speak Broadly, The Troubles Of Life As We Find Them Are Mainly Traceable To The Heart Or The Purse.

Patriotism, Red Hot, Is Compatible With The Existence Of A Neglect Of National Interests, A Dishonesty, A Cold Indifference To The Suffering Of Millions. Patriotism Is Largely Pride, And Very Largely Combativeness. Patriotism Generally Has A Chip On Its Shoulder.

As For Mother Eve - I Wasn't There And Can't Deny The Story, But I Will Say This. If She Brought Evil Into The World, We Men Have Had The Lion's Share Of Keeping It Going Ever Since.

The Labor Of Women In The House, Certainly, Enables Men To Produce More Wealth Than They Otherwise Could; And In This Way Women Are Economic Factors In Society. But So Are Horses.

Shall You Complain Who Feed The World? Who Clothe The World? Who House The World? Shall You Complain Who Are The World, Of What The World May Do? As From This Hour You Use Your Power, The World Must Follow You!

The Women Who Do The Most Work Get The Least Money, And The Women Who Have The Most Money Do The Least Work.

When All Usefulness Is Over, When One Is Assured Of An Unavoidable And Imminent Death, It Is The Simplest Of Human Rights To Choose A Quick And Easy Death In Place Of A Slow And Horrible One.

It Would Have Saved Trouble Had I Remained Perkins From The First, This Changing Of Women's Names Is A Nuisance We Are Now Happily Outgrowing.

To-day There Is Hardly A Woman Of Intelligence In All America ... Who Is Not Definitely And Actively Concerned In Some Social Interest, Who Does Not Recognize Some Duty Besides Those Incident To Her Own Blood Relationship.

But I Must Say What I Feel And Think In Some Way — It Is Such A Relief! But The Effort Is Getting To Be Greater Than The Relief.

A Man Does Not Have To Stay At Home All Day, In Order To Love It; Why Should A Woman?

[warfare Is] Maleness In Its Absurdest Extremes. Here Is To Be Studied The Whole Gamut Of Basic Masculinity, From The Initial Instinct Of Combat, Through Every Form Of Glorious Ostentation, With The Loudest Accompaniment Of Noise.

A Million Million Worlds That Move In Peace;a Million Mighty Laws That Never Cease;and One Small Ant-heap, Hidden By Small Weeds,rich With Eggs, Slaves And Store Of Millet-seeds.they Sleep Beneath The Sodand Trust In God.

We Have Built Into The Constitution Of The Human Race The Habit And Desire Of Taking, As Divorced From Its Natural Precursor And Concomitant Of Making.

Eternity Is Not Something That Begins After You Are Dead. It Is Going On All The Time.

Eternity Of Life

No Matter What The Belief, If It Had Modestly Said, 'this Is Our Best Thought, Go On, Think Farther!' Then We Could Have Smoothly Outgrown Our Early Errors And Long Since Have Developed A Religion Such As Would Have Kept Pace With An Advancing World. But We Were Made To Believe And Not Allowed To Think. We Were Told To Obey, Rather Than To Experiment And Investigate.

Concepts Antedate Facts.

It Will Be A Great Thing For The Human Soul When It Finally Stops Worshipping Backwards.

I'm Sure I Never Used To Be So Sensitive. I Think It Is Due To This Nervous Condition.

The Original Necessity For The Ceaseless Presence Of The Woman To Maintain That Altar Fire - And It Was An Altar Fire In Very Truth At One Period - Has Passed With The Means Of Prompt Ignition; The Matchbox Has Freed The Housewife From That Incessant Service, But The Feeling That Women Should Stay At Home Is With Us Yet.

It Cannot Be Too Strongly Asserted That The Insistence On Blind, Unreasoning Faith Is Due Mainly To The Maintenance Of A Subject-matter Upon Which There Was No Knowledge, Namely The 'other World'; And That This Basis Was Assumed Because Of Early Man's Preoccupation With Death. It Is, Unfortunately, Quite Possible To Believe A Thing Which Is Contradicted By Facts, Especially If The Facts Are Not Generally Known; But If The Whole Position On Which We Rested Our Religions Had Been Visibly Opposed By What We Did Know, Even The Unthinking Masses Would, In Time, Have Noticed It.

But We Were Made To Believe And Not Allowed To Think. We Were Told To Obey, Rather Than To Experiment And Investigate.

Love Grows By Service.

When The Mother Of The Race Is Free, We Shall Have A Better World, By The Easy Right Of Birth And By The Calm, Slow, Friendly Forces Of Evolution.

And Woman Should Stand Beside Man As The Comrade Of His Soul, Not The Servant Of His Body.

It Is Not For Nothing That A Man's Best Friends Sigh When He Marries, Especially If He Is A Man Of Genius.

(i Would Not Say It To A Living Soul, Of Course, But This Is Dead Paper And A Great Relief To My Mind

The Home Is The Centre And Circumference, The Start And The Finish, Of Most Of Our Lives.

I Cry At Nothing, And Cry Most Of The Time.

Said I, In Scorn All Burning Hot,in Rage And Anger High,"you Ignominious Idiot,those Wings Are Made To Fly!

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