Luisa Capetillo > Quotes

“Do not buy finery or jewels, because books are worth more than they are. Adorn your understanding with their precious ideas, because there is no luxury that dazzles like the luxury of science.”
― Luisa Capetillo

“Your Honor, I always wear pants. And on the night in question, instead of wearing them underneath, I wore them just like men do, based on my perfect civil right to do so, on the OUTSIDE

(After getting arrested for wearing pants)”
― Luisa Capetillo

“Although we are all brothers, some die of hunger and of foodstuffs, clothing and shoes. And with so many naked and bare-while what is useful and necessary rots at the depots and warehouses”
― Luisa Capetillo

“There are many women who think that being a mother means contradicting a child, and later they beat them, and order them about for the sake of giving orders, to see herself obeyed, ordering the child not to run, not to jump, not to yell, in sum, a whole bunch of ignorant things, the truth is, to prohibit a child from doing all this is to prohibit them from being healthy. They act like this with girls precisely because they are girls, as if a girl's organism did not have to develop, so that they can grow up beautiful and strong, and not scrawny and pale, nor become mothers full of pains and ailments. They think that being a mother authorizes them to mistreat and order the children at whim, and oblige them to do things against their will, that is an error.”
― Luisa Capetillo, A Nation Of Women: An Early Feminist Speaks Out; Mi Opinion Sobre Las Libertades, Derechos y Deberes de la Mujer (Recovering the U.s. Hispanic Literary Heritage)

“In the middle of great abundance, and without having studied the social question, I believed that everybody had the right to be clean and clothed, to wear shoes, and I didn’t understand why it wasn’t so. I thought everyone knew how to read and write and I was astonished when I saw the opposite”
― Luisa Capetillo

“Women are capable of everything and anything”
― Luisa Capetillo, A Nation Of Women: An Early Feminist Speaks Out / Mi opinión sobre las libertades, derechos y deberes de la mujer

“Quien no sufre, no avanza”
― Luisa Capetillo

“Mujeres de todas las posiciones defendeos, que el enemigo es formidable, pero no le temáis, que segun es el tamaño es su cobardia

Women of all positions defend yourself, that the enemy is formidable, but do not fear him, that according to his size is his cowardice”
― Luisa Capetillo, A Nation Of Women: An Early Feminist Speaks Out; Mi Opinion Sobre Las Libertades, Derechos y Deberes de la Mujer (Recovering the U.s. Hispanic Literary Heritage)

“Todos los que apoyan, y continúan explotando, son los que sostienen el estado de miseria del pueblo y por tanto son los sostenedores de las cárceles, presidios ó mejor dicho los creadores de ladrones, de asesinos, de locos y fanáticos religiosos y políticos. Porque si no fuera por temor á la miseria, no habría fanáticos, políticos y religiosos.”
― Luisa Capetillo, A Nation Of Women: An Early Feminist Speaks Out; Mi Opinion Sobre Las Libertades, Derechos y Deberes de la Mujer (Recovering the U.s. Hispanic Literary Heritage)

“She’s a woman, not only when she’s powdered and wearing lace and ribbons, just like a man doesn’t stop being a man when he learns to cook, mend, sweep and sew.”
― Luisa Capetillo

“La moral establecida, o lo que se llama moral, no lo es, no se puede aceptar una moral que esta en contra de la libertad y los derechos de cada uno de los humanos”
― Luisa Capetillo, A Nation Of Women: An Early Feminist Speaks Out; Mi Opinion Sobre Las Libertades, Derechos y Deberes de la Mujer (Recovering the U.s. Hispanic Literary Heritage)

“You, monstruos exploiter, measure your steps, because if you don’t, you may fall into the precipice of your own egotism or into the abyss of your own errors!

(From "Mi Opinion")”
― Luisa Capetillo

“Estudiemos y preparemos nuestra generación para las luchas futuras, que se avecinan.

Let us study and prepare our generation for the future struggles, which lie ahead.”
― Luisa Capetillo, A Nation Of Women: An Early Feminist Speaks Out; Mi Opinion Sobre Las Libertades, Derechos y Deberes de la Mujer (Recovering the U.s. Hispanic Literary Heritage)

“Well, my friends, don’t let my ways surprise you. I have read Malatesta, Tolstoy and Zola, so I have understood many things that I couldn’t before”
― Luisa Capetillo

“How many girls pay for the tantrums, jealousies or vexations of their mothers, who act without any justifying motive, only because they need to blow off steam and they can’t do it in front of their husbands.”
― Luisa Capetillo, A Nation Of Women: An Early Feminist Speaks Out; Mi Opinion Sobre Las Libertades, Derechos y Deberes de la Mujer (Recovering the U.s. Hispanic Literary Heritage)

“Grande y digno ejemplo darías tú, oh mujer! rompiendo las tradicionales costumbres, injustas y tiranas, símbolos de la ignorancia para establecer el reinado de la Libertad, Igualdad y Fraternidad, símbolos de la verdad y la justicia!”
― Luisa Capetillo

“There is nothing more harmful to the success of an endeavor than timidity and doubt. This type of cowardice that I believe only the lazy possess. I do not believe anything to be impossible; nor am I amazed by any invention or discovery, which is why I do not find any idea utopian. What is essential is that the idea be
put into practice. Begin! The rest is weakness and an erroneous concept of human power.
Wanting is doing!”
― Luisa Capetillo, A Nation Of Women: An Early Feminist Speaks Out / Mi opinión sobre las libertades, derechos y deberes de la mujer

“Eliminate power but not people”
― Luisa Capetillo

“Habiendo en la naturaleza lo suficiente para alimentarse humanidades como la actual, sin explotaciones, ni fraudes, ni miseria?”
― Luisa Capetillo, A Nation Of Women: An Early Feminist Speaks Out; Mi Opinion Sobre Las Libertades, Derechos y Deberes de la Mujer (Recovering the U.s. Hispanic Literary Heritage)

“Education is the mother of freedom; science is her eldest daughter; and her sisters, tolerance and discretion, with rights and responsibilities.”
― Luisa Capetillo

“Harmony within a marriage greatly influences the education of children, our future citizens. How many times have a mother’s tears, cried in moments of pain and contradiction, powerfully influenced her children!”
― Luisa Capetillo, A Nation Of Women: An Early Feminist Speaks Out; Mi Opinion Sobre Las Libertades, Derechos y Deberes de la Mujer (Recovering the U.s. Hispanic Literary Heritage)

“My great worry is the problem of poverty…Instead of prisons, I would have schools, art and vocational academies, free trade, free love, the abolition of marriage and the substitution of private property for public property.”
― Luisa Capetillo

“Why call George Sand a wild woman in the publicity for her books? I protest the use of such an inaccurate epithet for such a cultivated and intelligent woman”
― Luisa Capetillo

“I refuse to accept the assertion of any historian who erroneously believes that women have no right to use their freedom without being considered corrupt or immoral, while men have been able to do whatever they want and indulge the most absurd and ridiculous whims, without being judged, repudiated or prevented from going where they choose, with no concern about not being paid attention to, respected or sought after. We are going to put an end to those unequal laws-where the few have a lot and the many have a little-in order to finally secure peace for the just and achieve the truth and justice that our sex deserves.”
― Luisa Capetillo

“They ask for freedom and they practice oppression”
― Luisa Capetillo

“Education means cultivating patience, tolerance, a sweet disposition, harmony, abnegation, and temperateness. Anyone who cultivates these virtues is truly educated.”
― Luisa Capetillo, A Nation Of Women: An Early Feminist Speaks Out; Mi Opinion Sobre Las Libertades, Derechos y Deberes de la Mujer (Recovering the U.s. Hispanic Literary Heritage)

“Universal fraternity is my goal

(From "Mi Opinion")”
― Luisa Capetillo

“Pants adapt perfectly to this era of female progress

(From "Mi Opinion")”
― Luisa Capetillo

“The only thing we want to put forth is that women must acquire greater freedom and rights. The current system, with all its errors, is sustained by the ignorance and slavery of women.”
― Luisa Capetillo, A Nation Of Women: An Early Feminist Speaks Out; Mi Opinion Sobre Las Libertades, Derechos y Deberes de la Mujer (Recovering the U.s. Hispanic Literary Heritage)

“Porque el hogar protejido por las leyes, y las riquezas, se beneficia y se proteje más y se olvida el hogar pobre. Se olvida que la familia pobre, en vez de enviar á sus hijos á la escuela los utiliza vendiendo frutas ó los tiene que alquilar, ó hacer trabajos superiores á su edad.”
― Luisa Capetillo, A Nation Of Women: An Early Feminist Speaks Out; Mi Opinion Sobre Las Libertades, Derechos y Deberes de la Mujer (Recovering the U.s. Hispanic Literary Heritage)