Olive Schreiner Quotes

The extension of women's rights is the basic principle of all social progress.

I didn't fight to get women out from behind vacuum cleaners to get them onto the board of Hoover.

[T]he great social changes are impossible without the feminine ferment.

Women will be no longer made the slaves of, or dependent upon men ... They will be equal in education, rights, privileges and personal liberty.

Every movement takes a century to make its mark. The women’s movement is only 40 some years old.

Knowing the horror that most women have of anything approaching irreverence, the Bible has been called out to play the part of a scarecrow on the rich fields of men’s monopolies…Men have had the management of all things human for six thousand years…Has the result been so eminently successful that we need dread a little change?

Social progress can be measured exactly by the social position of the fair sex.

We always had a lot of admiration for feminists who were out there trying to change things for the better for women, who were trying to find equality in the workplace and at home.

A few British suffragettes everybody laughed at started the cause of equality between men and women.

Equality and development will not be achieved however if peace is not understood from women's' point of view.

If society will not admit of woman's free development, then society must be remodeled.

We fully believed, so soon as we saw that woman's suffrage was right, every one would soon see the same thing, and that in a year or two, at farthest, it would be granted.

That a majority of women do not wish for any important change in their social and civil condition, merely proves that they are the unreflecting slaves of custom.

The battle for the individual rights of women is one of long standing and none of us should countenance anything which undermines it.

This position is untenable, and there can be no pause in the agitation for full political power and responsibility until these are granted to all the women of the nation.

I do not want to be the angel of any home: I want for myself what I want for other women, absolute equality. After that is secured, then men and women can take turns being angels.

Women are called upon to defend every bit of progress we have made against particularly virulent attack. But we must also hold out a vision, put forth a positive agenda of what women need and want and then move forward toward that dream.

I believe there is complete equality between men and women. And I believe those passages in the New Testament, not by Jesus, but by Paul, that say women should not adorn themselves, they should always wear hats or color their hair in church - things like that - I think they are signs of the times and should not apply to modern-day life.

I'm working for the women in the world, today; that's my essential issue.

I will feel equality has arrived when we can elect to office women who are as incompetent as some of the men who are already there.

The point of the feminist movement wasn't simply to set our underwear on fire and muscle into small spaces in the male-dominated workplace, but to create a world where the contribution of both sexes was equally valued and no one's worth was judged on their take-home salary.

No struggle can ever succeed without women participating side by side with men.

We need women at all levels, including the top, to change the dynamic, reshape the conversation, to make sure women's voices are heard and heeded, not overlooked and ignored.

I'm always trying to push for women's rights.

Oh, if I could but live another century and see the fruition of all the work for women! There is so much yet to be done.