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The church and civilization are antipodal; one means authority, the other freedom; one means conservatism, the other progress; one means the rights of God as interpreted by the priesthood, the other the rights of humanity as interpreted by humanity. Civilization advances by free thought, free speech, free men.

— Matilda Joslyn Gage Woman, Church and State (1893)

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More quotes by Matilda Joslyn Gage

The careful student of history will discover that Christianity has been of very little value in advancing civilization, but has done a great deal toward retarding it.

Woman, Church and State (1893)

For a long period after the reformation, English women were not permitted to read the Bible, a statute of the Eighth Henry prohibiting ‘women and others of low degree’ from its use.

Woman, Church and State (1893)

Boiling heretics and malefactors alive, commonly in oil but occasionally in water, was practised throughout Europe until a comparatively late period.

Woman, Church and State (1893)

Those who fear woman’s incapacity to cope with the trials of life, should consider what is now actually thrust upon her by existing customs.

Let the Truth Prevail (1852)

The State, agent and slave of the Church, has so long united with it in suppression of woman’s intelligence, has so long preached of power to man alone, that it has created an inherited tendency, an inborn line of thought toward repression.

Woman, Church and State (1893)

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Matilda Joslyn Gage (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.