Nellie L. McClung famous quotes

Never retract, never explain, never apologize; get things done and let them howl.
-- Nellie L. McClung

#Apology #Done #Apologizing

I want to leave something behind when I go; some small legacy of truth, some word that will shine in a dark place.
-- Nellie L. McClung

#Dark #Shining #Want

Women are going to form a chain, a greater sisterhood than the world has ever known.
-- Nellie L. McClung

#Sisterhood #World #Chains

I am a believer in women, in their ability to do things and in their influence and power. Women set the standards for the world, and it is for us, women in Canada, to set the standards high.
-- Nellie L. McClung

#World #Canada #Influence

Men alone are not capable of making laws for men and women.
-- Nellie L. McClung

#Men #Law #Sexism

the grief that can be turned into words soon heals.
-- Nellie L. McClung

#Grief #Heal

That seems to be the haunting fear of mankind - that the advancement of women will sometime, someway, someplace, interfere with some man's comfort.
-- Nellie L. McClung

#Men #Feminism #Haunting

I am one of those irritating people, who hang on to the door-knob after they say good-bye, and will neither come back nor go, always remembering something else which must be said ...
-- Nellie L. McClung

#Doors #Bye #People

Prohibition is a hard sounding word, worthless as a rallying cry, hard as a locked door or going to bed without your supper.
-- Nellie L. McClung

#Drinking #Doors #Bed

Women who set a low value of themselves make life hard for all women.
-- Nellie L. McClung

#Lows #Values

Every season of life has its compensations ...
-- Nellie L. McClung

#Life #Compensation

Literature may be light as a cobweb, but it must be fastened down to life at the four corners.
-- Nellie L. McClung

#Light #Four #May

The greatest insult came at the marriage ceremony when the minister asked 'who giveth this woman,' and some brother, or father or other man, unblushingly said he did, as though it were entirely a commercial transaction between men.
-- Nellie L. McClung

#Marriage #Brother #Father

The middle years of life come on like thunder.
-- Nellie L. McClung

#Years #Age #Thunder

It is often true that those who sit in the wings can see more than the players.
-- Nellie L. McClung

#Player #Wings #Perspective

Humanity has to travel a hard road to wisdom, and it has to travel it with bleeding feet.
-- Nellie L. McClung

#Wisdom #Feet #Humanity

No nation ever rises higher than its women ...
-- Nellie L. McClung

#Women #Higher #Men Women

The average reader can contemplate with considerable fortitude the sorrows and disappointments of someone else.
-- Nellie L. McClung

#Disappointment #Compassion #Average

Chivalry is like a line of credit. You can get plenty of it when you do not need it.
-- Nellie L. McClung

#Lines #Needs #Credit

Chivalry is a poor substitute for justice, if one cannot have both. Chivalry is something like the icing on the cake, sweet but not nourishing.
-- Nellie L. McClung

#Sweet #Cake #Justice

People must know the past to understand the present, and to face the future;
-- Nellie L. McClung

#Past #People #Faces

A wound in a young heart is like a wound in a young tree. It does not grow out. It grows in.
-- Nellie L. McClung

#Heart #Tree #Doe

Canada is destined to be one of the great nations of the world and Canadian women must be ready for citizenship.
-- Nellie L. McClung

#Canada #World #Citizenship

Why are pencils equipped with erasers if not to correct mistakes?
-- Nellie L. McClung

#Mistake #Pencils

I saw what could be done with words, for I had a vision of a new world as I talked.
-- Nellie L. McClung

#Vision #Saws #Done

Never underestimate the power of a woman.
-- Nellie L. McClung

#Underestimate

Have we not the brains to think? Hands to work? Hearts to feel? And lives to live?
-- Nellie L. McClung

#Heart #Thinking #Hands

The good is the greatest rival of the best.
-- Nellie L. McClung

#Rivals #Goodness

The economic dependence of women is perhaps the greatest injustice that has been done to us, and has worked the greatest injury to the race.
-- Nellie L. McClung

#Women #Race #Done

By nice women . . . you probably mean selfish women who have no more thought for the underprivileged, overworked women than a pussycat in a sunny window for the starving kitten in the street. Now in that sense I am not a nice woman, for I do care.
-- Nellie L. McClung

#Nice #Women #Selfish

Children are great idealists, until the stupidity of their elders puts out the fires of the aspirations.
-- Nellie L. McClung

#Children #Fire #Stupidity

Disturbers are never popular - nobody ever really loved an alarm clock in action, no matter how grateful he may have been afterwards for its kind services!
-- Nellie L. McClung

#Grateful #May #Matter

We may yet live to see the day when women will be no longer news! And it cannot come too soon. I want to be a peaceful, happy, normal human being, pursuing my unimpeded way through life, never having to stop to explain, defend or apologize for my sex.
-- Nellie L. McClung

#Sex #Peaceful #May

War is the antithesis of all our teaching. It breaks all the commandments; it makes rich men poor, and strong men weak. It makes well men sick, and by it living men are changed to dead men.
-- Nellie L. McClung

#Strong #War #Teaching

War is a crime committed by men and, therefore, when enough people say it shall not be, it cannot be.
-- Nellie L. McClung

#War #Men #People

War proves nothing. To kill a man does not prove that he was in the wrong. Bloodletting cannot change men's spirits, neither can the evil of men's thoughts be driven out by blows. If I go to my neighbor's house, and break her furniture, and smash her pictures, and bind her children captive, it does not prove that I am fitter to live than she - yet according to ethics of nations it does. I have conquered her and she must pay me for my trouble; and her house and all that is left in it belongs to my heirs and successors, forever. That is war!
-- Nellie L. McClung

#Children #War #Blow

it makes a great difference to a speaker whether he has something to say, or has to say something.
-- Nellie L. McClung

#Differences #Speakers

thought without expression is dynamic and gathers volume by repression. Evolution when blocked and suppressed becomes revolution.
-- Nellie L. McClung

#Expression #Revolution #Volume

In regard to tenacity of life, no old yellow cat has anything on a prejudice. You may kill it with your own hands, bury it deep, and sit on the grave, and behold! the next day it will walk in at the back door, purring.
-- Nellie L. McClung

#Cat #Doors #Hands

The horse on the treadmill may be very discontented, but he is not disposed to tell his troubles, for he cannot stop to talk.
-- Nellie L. McClung

#Horse #Poverty #May