50 Susan B. Anthony Quotes on Life, Change, and Failure

Looking for inspirational Susan B. Anthony quotes that will make you value your freedom?

Susan B. Anthony was an American social reformer and women’s rights activist who played a key role in the women’s voting rights movement.

She was the president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association and the New York state agent for the American Anti-Slavery Society.

Born on February 15, 1820, in Adams, Massachusetts, Anthony was brought up in a Quaker family with long activist traditions, and she developed a sense of justice and moral zeal early in her life.

She went on to work as a teacher before becoming active in temperance.

In 1952, she joined the women’s rights movement after meeting Elizabeth Cady Stanton.

The two would become lifelong friends who dedicated their lives to advocating for social reforms.

Although she was harshly ridiculed and accused of trying to destroy the institution of marriage, Anthony never shied away from campaigning for women’s rights.

She was even arrested and convicted in 1872 for voting but she refused to pay the fine.

She would later help push the Congress to ratify an amendment giving women the right to vote.

Susan B. Anthony will always be remembered for her aggressiveness and compassion as well as her keen mind and great ability to inspire.

Despite all the opposition and abuse, she managed to use her Everyday Power to give force and direction to the women’s suffrage movement.

In her honor, here is our collection of inspirational, wise, and powerful Susan B. Anthony quotes and Susan B. Anthony sayings that will inspire you.

Born: February 15, 1820, Adams, Massachusetts, U.S.

Died: March 13, 1906 (aged 86), Rochester, New York, U.S.

Also, check out our most popular quote article, a list of short inspirational quotes for daily wisdom. 

See the rest of our quote database for even more inspirational ideas and thoughts.

Susan B. Anthony Quotes About Life, Change, and Failure

1. I think the girl who is able to earn her own living and pay her own way should be as happy as anybody on earth. The sense of independence and security is very sweet. – Susan B. Anthony

2. The day may be approaching when the whole world will recognize woman as the equal of man. – Susan B. Anthony

3. I declare to you that woman must not depend upon the protection of man, but must be taught to protect herself, and there I take my stand. – Susan B. Anthony

4. Suffrage is the pivotal right. – Susan B. Anthony

5. Trust me that as I ignore all law to help the slave, so will I ignore it all to protect an enslaved woman. – Susan B. Anthony

6. Independence is happiness. – Susan B. Anthony

7. Men – their rights and nothing more; Women – their rights and nothing less. – Susan B. Anthony

8. Failure is impossible. – Susan B. Anthony

9. 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. – Susan B. Anthony

You might also like these powerful Ida B. Wells quotes on battling racism and sexism.

Susan B. Anthony Quotes About Change

10. Let me tell you what I think of bicycling. I think it has done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world. It gives women a feeling of freedom and self-reliance. I stand and rejoice every time I see a woman ride by on a wheel…the picture of free, untrammeled womanhood. – Susan B. Anthony

11. Woman must not depend upon the protection of man, but must be taught to protect herself. – Susan B. Anthony

12. The true woman will not be exponent of another, or allow another to be such for her. She will be her own individual self… Stand or fall by her own individual wisdom and strength… She will proclaim the “glad tidings of good news” to all women, that woman equally with man was made for her own individual happiness, to develop… every talent given to her by God, in the great work of life. – Susan B. Anthony

13. Cautious, careful people, always casting about to preserve their reputation and social standing, never can bring about a reform. Those who are really in earnest must be willing to be anything or nothing in the world’s estimation. – Susan B. Anthony

14. I do not demand equal pay for any women save those who do equal work in value. Scorn to be coddled by your employers; make them understand that you are in their service as workers, not as women. – Susan B. Anthony

15. I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do, because I notice it always coincides with their own desires. – Susan B. Anthony

16. The only chance women have for justice in this country is to violate the law, as I have done, and as I shall continue to do. – Susan B. Anthony

17. There is no history about which there is so much ignorance as this great movement for the establishment of equal political rights for women. I hope the twentieth century will see the triumph of our cause. – Susan B. Anthony

18. The older I get, the greater power I seem to have to help the world; I am like a snowball – the further I am rolled the more I gain – Susan B. Anthony

19. I beg you to speak of Woman as you do of the Negro, speak of her as a human being, as a citizen of the United States, as a half of the people in whose hands lies the destiny of this Nation. – Susan B. Anthony

Powerful Susan B. Anthony Quotes

20. I don’t want to die as long as I can work; the minute I can not, I want to go. – Susan B. Anthony

21. If all the rich and all of the church people should send their children to the public schools they would feel bound to concentrate their money on improving these schools until they met the highest ideals. – Susan B. Anthony

22. No man is good enough to govern any woman without her consent. – Susan B. Anthony

23. Where, under our Declaration of Independence, does the Saxon man get his power to deprive all women and Negroes of their inalienable rights? – Susan B. Anthony

24. May it please your honor, I will never pay a dollar of your unjust penalty.… And I shall earnestly and persistently continue to urge all women to the practical recognition of the old Revolutionary maxim, “Resistance to tyranny is obedience to God. – Susan B. Anthony

25. It was we, the people, not we, the white male citizens, nor yet we, the male citizens, but we, the whole people, who formed this Union. And we formed it, not to give the blessings of liberty, but to secure them; not to the half of ourselves and the half of our posterity, but to the whole people — women as well as men. – Susan B. Anthony

26. Join the union, girls, and together say Equal Pay for Equal Work. – Susan B. Anthony

27. 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. – Susan B. Anthony

28. 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. – Susan B. Anthony

29. There never will be complete equality until women themselves help to make laws and elect lawmakers. – Susan B. Anthony

Susan B. Anthony quotes on women

30. No self-respecting woman should wish or work for the success of a party that ignores her sex. – Susan B. Anthony

31. Wherever women gather together failure is impossible. – Susan B. Anthony

32. Organize, agitate, educate, must be our war cry. – Susan B. Anthony

33. The religious persecution of the ages has been done under what was claimed to be the command of God. – Susan B. Anthony

34. There shall never be another season of silence until women have the same rights men have on this green earth. – Susan B. Anthony

35. Those of you who have the talent to do honor to poor womanhood, have all given yourself over to baby-making. . . – Susan B. Anthony

36. Modern invention has banished the spinning wheel, and the same law of progress makes the woman of today a different woman from her grandmother. – Susan B. Anthony

37. I can see that “reap” and “deep,” “prayers” and “bears,” . . . do rhyme, and so I suppose it is a splendid effort, but if you had written it in plain prose, I could have understood it a great deal better and read it a great deal more easily.” – Susan B. Anthony

38. We need to see whether this is a one-off or more serious. – Susan B. Anthony

Susan B. Anthony Quotes on Failure

39. The reduced forecast for the handset market is a surprise at this stage of the year…they are pulling back their own sales growth, and I would have thought they wouldn’t need to do that until later in the year. – Susan B. Anthony

40. The shares have just run away from themselves, so some falls are to be expected. – Susan B. Anthony

41. Coin. I’m on on. Suck it. – Susan B. Anthony

42. I pray every single second of my life; not on my knees but with my work. My prayer is to lift women to equality with men. Work and worship are one with me. – Susan B. Anthony

43. Every woman should have a purse of her own. – Susan B. Anthony

Other inspirational Susan B. Anthony quotes

44. There is not a woman born who desires to eat the bread of dependence. – Susan B. Anthony

45. To think, I have had more than 60 years of hard struggle for a little liberty, and then to die without it seems so cruel. – Susan B. Anthony

46. Whoever controls work and wages, controls morals. – Susan B. Anthony

47. What you should do is to say to outsiders that a Christian has neither more nor less rights in our association than an atheist. – Susan B. Anthony
If you’re enjoying these quotes, you’ll love our collection of atheist quotes that will make you ask valuable questions.

48. …the women of this nation in 1876, have greater cause for discontent, rebellion and revolution than the men of 1776. ― Susan B. Anthony

49. I do not consider divorce an evil by any means. It is just as much a refuge for women married to brutal men as Canada was to the slaves of brutal masters. ― Susan B. Anthony

50. We assert the province of government to be to secure the people in the enjoyment of their unalienable rights. We throw to the winds the old dogma that governments can give rights. ― Susan B. Anthony

Which of these  Susan B. Anthony quotes was your favorite?

Although she was opposed and abused, Susan B. Anthony spent much of her life campaigning for equal rights for both women and African Americans.

She traveled across the nation in support of women’s suffrage and also campaigned for the abolition of slavery.

Besides, Anthony advocated for women’s labor organizations and for the right for women to own their own property and retain their earnings.

Hopefully, these Susan B. Anthony quotes have made you treasure your independence.

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