Valuable Woman Quotes: 16 Lines From Women Writers, and Who Really Said Them

The line most often shared from Persuasion as Jane Austen's verdict on women's worth is not spoken by Anne Elliot, the heroine. It belongs to Mrs Croft, an admiral's wife who has crossed the Atlantic four times, and she says it to her brother because he thinks ships are no place for women. That detail changes how the line reads, and it is typical of this subject: many of the most quoted "valuable woman" lines come from novels, so a character is speaking, not the author.

This page sorts 16 lines by who is actually speaking: a character in a novel, the author writing in her own voice, or a woman addressing a legislature, a newspaper's readers or a friend in a letter. Each line was checked against the original text (Project Gutenberg editions for the books, published transcripts for the speeches), and the wording below follows those sources rather than the versions on posters. At the end are the lines we left out: two real passages that are about something else, and two famous sayings with no source at all.

The 16 lines at a glance

When a character says it: five lines from fiction

A line from a novel is a fair thing to quote, but the speaker should be named correctly. Credit it to "Jane Eyre, in Charlotte Brontë's novel" when it's the character speaking, and to Brontë alone only when you mean the book's argument as a whole.

But I hate to hear you talking so like a fine gentleman, and as if women were all fine ladies, instead of rational creatures.

— Mrs Croft, in Jane Austen, Persuasion, ch. 8 (published December 1817, title page 1818)

Captain Wentworth has just said he would never willingly carry women aboard his ships. His sister, who has followed her husband the Admiral across oceans, objects, and adds: "We none of us expect to be in smooth water all our days." Posters often move the line into Anne Elliot's mouth and drop "talking so like a fine gentleman", which removes the joke at Wentworth's expense. In the original it lands best when someone has decided for you what you can endure.

You can bind my body, tie my hands, govern my acts. You have the right of the stronger, and society confirms you in it; but you cannot command my will, monsieur.

— Indiana, in George Sand, Indiana, 1832 (Part Third; George Burnham Ives translation, 1900)

Indiana says this to her husband, Colonel Delmare, when he demands to know where she spent the night. Just before it she tells him, "The laws of this country make you my master." The line is literal: France abolished divorce in 1816, and it stayed illegal until 1884. The version on many quote sites ("with my will, sir, you can do nothing") comes from a different translation. If you cite it, name the translator, because the English wording depends on whose version you read.

I am no bird; and no net ensnares me; I am a free human being with an independent will, which I now exert to leave you.

— Jane Eyre, in Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre, ch. 23, 1847

The usual quotation stops at "independent will" and leaves out the second half: Jane says this while she believes Rochester is about to marry Blanche Ingram and that she must go. Rochester answers by proposing. The full sentence is about choosing to leave a place where you are not valued, which makes it a stronger line for a resignation or a fresh start than for a generic poster.

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Lovely weather so far. I don't know how long it will last, but I'm not afraid of storms, for I'm learning how to sail my ship.

— Amy March, in Louisa May Alcott, Little Women, Part Second, ch. 44, "My Lord and Lady", 1869

This is the line people most often ask about, and the context surprises them. Amy is newly married to Laurie and is teasing about the "weather" of married life; Laurie has just called her his "little woman" and joked that she keeps him pointing west. It appears in the second part of the novel, published in 1869 (in Britain as Good Wives), not in the 1868 first part, and not during Amy's travels in Europe. It suits weddings and anniversaries better than the solo-voyage posters it usually appears on.

There are two ways of spreading light: to be / The candle or the mirror that reflects it.

— Edith Wharton, "Vesalius in Zante (1564)", North American Review, November 1902

The poem is a dramatic monologue spoken by the anatomist Andreas Vesalius near the end of his life, as he looks back on his work and on the younger anatomist Fallopius, who corrected some of it. Strictly, then, it is a character's thought, though Wharton gave it the most quotable shape. It is a generous line for thanking someone whose role was to pass good work on, such as an editor, a mentor or a colleague who championed you.

In her own voice: six authors writing as themselves

These need no "character" caveat. Each is the author arguing directly, and each loses something when it is cut too short.

I do not wish them to have power over men; but over themselves.

— Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, ch. 4, 1792

Wollstonecraft is answering Rousseau, whom she quotes one line earlier: "Educate women like men… and the more they resemble our sex the less power will they have over us." Her reply turns his warning into her goal. It is the clearest single sentence for the argument that education is about self-government, and it works well on a graduation card.

What Woman needs is not as a woman to act or rule, but as a nature to grow, as an intellect to discern, as a soul to live freely and unimpeded, to unfold such powers as were given her.

— Margaret Fuller, Woman in the Nineteenth Century, 1845

Fuller expanded an 1843 essay in The Dial into this book, often called the first major feminist work published in the United States. The quoted sentence comes just after she imagines men and women "bound… in equal worship". Most quote sites stop at "live freely". The full clause, "to unfold such powers as were given her", is the part about worth: the claim is that abilities exist, not that they must be granted.

For action is indeed the sole medium of expression for ethics.

— Jane Addams, Democracy and Social Ethics, ch. 7, "Political Reform", 1902

Addams, who founded Hull-House in Chicago in 1889, wrote this about reformers who cannot be sure of their motives "until their efforts are reduced to action". It is a dry line, but it suits anyone who has to show their values in a budget, a hiring decision or a policy rather than in a speech.

A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.

— Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own, ch. 1, 1929

The book grew from two lectures Woolf gave at Newnham and Girton colleges, Cambridge, in October 1928. She offers the sentence modestly, as "an opinion upon one minor point", and the rest of the book is the evidence for it. Swap "fiction" for any kind of serious work and the claim still holds, which is why it turns up in conversations about pay and childcare.

Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired, and success achieved.

— Helen Keller, Helen Keller's Journal: 1936–1937, 1938, p. 60

Keller kept this journal in the months after the death of Anne Sullivan Macy, her teacher and companion for almost fifty years, in October 1936. Knowing that, the sentence reads as something she was working through at the time rather than a slogan. Use the full two sentences on a sympathy card. The first sentence alone can sound like a lecture.

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You must do the thing you think you cannot do.

— Eleanor Roosevelt, You Learn by Living, ch. 2, "Fear—the Great Enemy", 1960

It closes a paragraph about getting through situations "you may think at the time… an impossibility" and coming out freer. Roosevelt was 76 when the book appeared. Of all her famous lines, this one has a clean, checkable source, unlike "No one can make you feel inferior without your consent" (see our women empowerment quotes page for where that one really comes from).

Speeches, letters and a masthead: five public statements

These women were addressing someone specific: a legislature, a convention, a friend, a newspaper's readers. Name that audience when you quote them, because it shows what each line was meant to achieve.

I come to present the strong claims of suffering humanity.

— Dorothea Dix, Memorial to the Legislature of Massachusetts, January 1843

Dix had spent two years visiting jails and almshouses, and her memorial went on to describe people kept "in cages, closets, cellars, stalls, pens". Women could not vote or sit in the legislature, so she wrote the case down and had it presented for her. The opening sentence is a model for anyone who has to speak for people who are not in the room, which is why it suits nurses, social workers and advocates.

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…if woman upset the world, do give her a chance to set it right side up again.

— Sojourner Truth, Women's Rights Convention, Akron, Ohio, May 1851, as reported by Marius Robinson in the Anti-Slavery Bugle, 21 June 1851

The better-known version, "If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone…", comes from Frances Gage's retelling published twelve years later, in 1863, which also introduced the refrain "Ain't I a woman?" and a Southern dialect that Truth, who grew up speaking Dutch in New York, did not use. Robinson, who knew her and printed his report weeks after the speech, is the closer witness. Our leadership quotes by women of color page covers more lines that were reworded in a similar way.

I attribute my success to this — I never gave or took an excuse.

— Florence Nightingale, letter to Hilary Bonham Carter, 1861

Most quote sites print "any excuse". The wording above is the one given in the sourced section of Nightingale's Wikiquote page, which cites a 2007 anthology rather than the letter itself, so treat the exact words as close but not archival. In the same letter she compares herself with the men around her: "When a disaster happens, I act and they make excuses." It suits a team that runs on standards, and it sits oddly on a card meant to be gentle.

Men, their rights and nothing more; women, their rights and nothing less.

— motto of The Revolution, the weekly edited by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and published by Susan B. Anthony, New York, from January 1868

The line is usually credited to Anthony alone. It was the paper's masthead, printed under "Principle, not policy; Justice, not favors", so the fairest credit is to the paper and both founders. Anthony ran the business side, and the paper regularly took up the cause of working women, so the line fits an equal-pay post well.

The strongest reason for giving woman all the opportunities for higher education, for the full development of her faculties, forces of mind and body… is the solitude and personal responsibility of her own individual life.

— Elizabeth Cady Stanton, "The Solitude of Self", address to the House Judiciary Committee, January 1892

Stanton was 76 and stepping down as president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association. She gave the speech to the committee and again to the association that week. Her argument is that each person faces life's hardest moments alone, so each must be equipped to meet them. The ellipsis above covers a long list ("a complete emancipation from all forms of bondage…") that is worth reading in full at the National Park Service transcript.

Choosing a line: three checks before you print it

1. Who is speaking? If it is a character (Mrs Croft, Indiana, Jane, Amy, Vesalius), say so, or at least don't present it as the author's personal creed. "As Jane Eyre tells Rochester…" is more accurate and also more vivid.
2. Does the cut change the meaning? Brontë's sentence ends "which I now exert to leave you"; Keller's continues into "trial and suffering". Trim a line only if the remaining words still mean what the writer meant.
3. Can the reader find it? Add the work and year at minimum. For translations (Sand), add the translator. For speeches reported by others (Truth), name the reporter.

Three ways the citation can sit naturally in a message:

• Wedding card: "As Amy March tells her family in Little Women: 'I'm not afraid of storms, for I'm learning how to sail my ship.' Here's to the two of you learning together."
• Farewell to a colleague: "Edith Wharton wrote that there are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it. You were both for this team."
• Equal-pay post: "'Men, their rights and nothing more; women, their rights and nothing less.' (Masthead of The Revolution, 1868.) It's more than 150 years later and we're still quoting it."

For shorter lines with the same care over sources, see our women leadership quotes, which are grouped by the moment you need them for.

Real lines that say something else

Two passages from the earlier version of this page are genuine but were being used for a meaning they don't carry.

• Kate Chopin, The Awakening (1899), ch. 6: "The voice of the sea is seductive; never ceasing, whispering, clamoring, murmuring, inviting the soul to wander for a spell in abysses of solitude." The word is "clamoring" (often printed "clearing"), and the passage is about the pull of the sea on Edna Pontellier. That pull is bound up with the novel's ending, which makes it a poor choice for an encouraging card.
• Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South (1854–55), ch. 15: "A wise parent humours the desire for independent action, so as to become the friend and adviser when his absolute rule shall cease." The speaker is Mr Hale, and he is talking about mill owners and their workers, not about women. It belongs in a discussion of management, not of women's worth.

Two famous sayings with no source

• "It is never too late to be what you might have been." Attributed to George Eliot, but it has not been found in her novels or letters. Quote Investigator traces the earliest known printing to a reader-submitted list in The Literary News in 1881, the year after her death (QI, 2013). If you use it, label it "commonly attributed to George Eliot (no source in her works)".
• "I may sometimes be willing to teach for nothing, but if paid at all, I shall never do a man's work for less than a man's pay." Commonly attributed to Clara Barton (no primary source located). It is usually tied to her Bordentown, New Jersey, school (1852–54), where a man was hired over her as principal. The story of that school is well documented, but we could not find this sentence in William E. Barton's 1922 Life of Clara Barton, which quotes her letters and diaries at length.

Questions readers ask

Where does "I am not afraid of storms, for I am learning how to sail my ship" come from?

From Louisa May Alcott's Little Women, Part Second, chapter 44, "My Lord and Lady" (1869). Amy March says it shortly after marrying Laurie, joking about the "weather" of marriage. The exact wording is "I'm not afraid of storms, for I'm learning how to sail my ship."

Did George Eliot say "It is never too late to be what you might have been"?

No source in her works has been found. The earliest known printing is an 1881 reader-submitted list in The Literary News, published after her death.

Is it wrong to quote a character as if the author said it?

It is common, but it can misrepresent the author. Austen gives the "rational creatures" line to Mrs Croft, and Gaskell gives the "wise parent" line to Mr Hale. Naming the speaker is more accurate and usually reads better.

If you keep only one line from this page, keep Wollstonecraft's: power "over themselves" rather than over anyone else. It is sourced, it is her own voice, and it says plainly what the other fifteen lines are about.