Quotes by Gloria Steinem

“Pornography is the instruction. Rape is the practice, battered women are the practice, and battered children are the practice.”

“It is more rewarding to watch money change the world than watch it accumulate.”

“Dreams, ideas, and plans not only are an escape, they give me purpose, a reason to hang on.”

“Beware of the man who denounces women writers; his penis is tiny and he cannot spell.”

“Plain women know more about men than beautiful ones do. But beautiful women dont need to know about men. Its the men who have to know about beautiful women.”

Without leaps of imagination or dreaming, we lose the excitement of possibilities. Dreaming, after all is a form of planning.

Rich People plan for three generationsPoor people plan for Saturday night

Men should think twice before making widowhood womens only path to power.

Writing is the only thing that when I do it, I dont feel I should be doing something else.

No wonder male religious leaders so often say that humans were born in sin—because we were born to female creatures. Only by obeying the rules of the patriarchy can we be reborn through men. No wonder priests and ministers in skirts sprinkle imitation birth fluid over our heads, give us new names, and promise rebirth into everlasting life.

In the 1970s, while researching in the Library of Congress, I found an obscure history of religious architecture that assumed a fact as if it were common knowledge: the traditional design of most patriarchal buildings of worship imitates the female body. Thus, there is an outer and inner entrance, labia majora and labia minora; a central vaginal aisle toward the altar; two curved ovarian structures on either side; and then in the sacred center, the altar or womb, where the miracle takes place - where males gives birth.Though this comparison was new to to me, it struck home like a rock down a well. Of course, I thought. The central ceremony of patriarchal religions is one in which men take over the yoni-power of creation by giving birth symbolically. No wonder male religious leaders so often say that humans were born in sin - because we were born to female creatures. Only by obeying the rules of the patriarchy can we be reborn through men. No wonder priests and ministers in skirts sprinkle imitation birth fluid over our heads, give us new names, and promise rebirth into everlasting life. No wonder the male priesthood tries to keep women away from the altar, just as women are kept away from control of our own powers of reproduction. Symbolic or real, its all devoted to controlling the power that resides in the female body.

Her searches after knowledge were arbitrary and without context. It was as if she were shining a small flashlight of curiosity into the dark room of the world.

If you find yourself drawn to an event against all logic, go. The universe is telling you something.

Being graded for memorizing male accomplishments with the deep message that we can learn what others do but never do it ourselves.

Thinking about our schooling in different decades and parts of the country, all three of us in that kitchen discover that we were taught more about ancient Greece and Rome than about the history of the land we live on. We learned about the pyramid builders of Egypt but not the pyramid builders of the Mississippi River.

Altogether, if I had to pick one place to hang out anywhere, from New York to Cape Town and Australia to Hong Kong, a bookstore would be it.

Like the spider spinning its web, we create much of the outer world from within ourselves. The universe is a joint product of the observer and the observed.

Artists strive to free this true and spontaneous self in their work. Creativity, meditation are ways of freeing an inner voice.

As always, self-esteem had created an ability to be generous.

Without leaps of the imagination, or dreaming, we lose the excitement of possibilities. Dreaming, after all, is a form of planning