95 Quotes by Frances Wright

These will vary in every human being; but knowledge is the same for every mind, and every mind may and ought to be trained to receive it.

Our religious belief usurps the place of our sensations, our imaginations of our judgment. We no longer look to actions, trace their consequences, and then deduce the rule; we first make the rule, and then, right or wrong, force the action to square with it.

He who lives in the single exercise of his mental faculties, however usefully or curiously directed, is equally an imperfect animal with the man who knows only the exercise of muscles.

We have seen that no religion stands on the basis of things known; none bounds its horizon within the field of human observation; and, therefore, as it can never present us with indisputable facts, so must it ever be at once a source of error and contention.

Know why you believe, understand what you believe, and possess a reason for the faith that is in you.

How are men to be secured in any rights without instruction; how to be secured in the equal exercise of those rights without equality of instruction? By instruction understand me to mean knowledge - just knowledge; not talent, not genius, not inventive mental powers.

And when did mere preaching do any good? Put something in the place of these things. Fill the vacuum of the mind.

Let us unite on the safe and sure ground of fact and experiment, and we can never err; yet better, we can never differ.

Religion may be defined thus: a belief in, and homage rendered to, existences unseen and causes unknown.