Frances Wright
Frances Wright
Frances Wrightalso widely known as Fanny Wright, was a Scottish-born lecturer, writer, freethinker, feminist, abolitionist, and social reformer, who became a US citizen in 1825. The same year l, she founded the Nashoba Commune in Tennessee, as a utopian community to prepare slaves for emancipation. She inteded to create an egalitarian place, but it lasted only three years. Her Views of Society and Manners in Americabrought her the most attention as a critique of the new nation...
NationalityScottish
ProfessionWriter
truth mind impression
the mode of delivering a truth makes, for the most part, as much impression on the mind of the listener as the truth itself.
mind may humans
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.
practice errors mind
The simplest principles become difficult of practice, when habits, formed in error, have been fixed by time, and the simplest truths hard to receive when prejudice has warped the mind.
law curiosity mind
Opinions are not to be learned by rote, like the letters of an alphabet, or the words of a dictionary. They are conclusions to be formed, and formed by each individual in the sacred and free citadel of the mind, and there enshrined beyond the arm of law to reach, or force to shake; ay! and beyond the right of impertinent curiosity to violate, or presumptuous arrogance to threaten.
mind church analysis
Turn your churches into halls of science, and devote your leisure day to the study of your own bodies, the analysis of your own minds, and the examination of the fair material world which extends around you!
among children government however occasion remark scottish-writer
Who among us but has had occasion to remark the ill-judged, however well-intentioned government of children by their teachers; and, yet more especially, by their parents?
expecting huge scottish-writer swamped tremendous
I have been swamped with tremendous response. I am expecting a huge crowd.
basis bounds error field human none present religion seen source stands
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.
deduce force longer religious square trace
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.
nature
Look into the nature of things. Search out the grounds of your opinions, the for and against.
advantages appear attentive cooperation equality evident foundation interests obtained perhaps physical sure union
It will appear evident upon attentive consideration that equality of intellectual and physical advantages is the only sure foundation of liberty, and that such equality may best, and perhaps only, be obtained by a union of interests and cooperation in labor.
hired pay preachers
The hired preachers of all sects, creeds, and religions, never do, and never can, teach any thing but what is in conformity with the opinions of those who pay them.
demand forget hear mean powers supply wealth
We hear of the wealth of nations, of the powers of production, of the demand and supply of markets, and we forget that these words mean no more, if they mean any thing, then the happiness, and the labor, and the necessities of men.
arrive attentive dictum examine learned meaning nature passing personal received surely time words
Surely it is time to examine into the meaning of words and the nature of things, and to arrive at simple facts, not received upon the dictum of learned authorities, but upon attentive personal observation of what is passing around us.