On Education

"I don't think the structure of the human skull is to be blamed for man's inability to understand the concept of infinity. He would certainly be able to understand it if, when young, and while developing his sense of perception, he were allowed to venture out into the universe rather than being cooped up on earth or, worse yet, confined within four walls in a provincial backwater. If someone can conceive of infinite happiness, he should be able to comprehend the infinity of space - I should think it much easier."

Mileva Maric Einstein in a letter to Albert Einstein

"If I were king, I would redress an abuse which cuts back, as it were, one half of human kind. I would have women participate in all human rights, especially those of the mind."

Emilie du Chatelet, 18th c. translator of Newton

"In Nature, we [women] have as clear an understanding as men, if we were bred in Schools to Mature our Brains."

Margaret Cavendish, 17th c. poet of science

"One teaches best by example."

Dr. Evelyn Boyd Granville, 20th c. Mathematician

On Sex and Reproduction

"Pleasure in a woman is comparable to the sun, which gently, calmly, and continuously spreads the earth with its heat, so that it may bring forth fruit."

Hildegard of Bingen, 12th c. Abbess

"All of us cannot, I fear, forswear marriage, and indeed for woman to triumph, women must be born."

M. Carrie Thomas, Dean, Bryn Mawr

"On welfare you get survival, but you can't really do anything else....And if you can't control your reproduction, you can't control your life."

Dr. Jocelyn Elders, Surgeon General 1993

"You have to address the root cause [of overpopulation] which is the low status of women. All the preferences in our society are for men. That has to be changed to make it equal."

Dr. Nafis Sadik, Director, UN Population Fund

"I can't mate in captivity."

Gloria Steinhem, 20th c. feminist

On Men Scientists

"Only women know how true it is that in the development of the highest scientific and scholarly qualities women have today far less favorable conditions than even men in Mississippi."

M. Carey Thomas, Dean, Bryn Mawr

"The men are here to stay; we might just as well work with them."

Ellen Swallow Richards, 19th c. Chemist

"In my younger days, when I was pained by half-educated, loose, and inaccurate ways which we all had, I used to say, 'How much women need exact science.' But since I have known some workers in science who were not always true to the teachings of nature, who have loved self more than science, I have said, 'How much science needs women!'

Maria Mitchell, 19th c. Astronomer

On Beauty and Fashion

"Women study no more of nature than their faces."

Margaret Cavendish, 17th c. poet of science

"An air of fashion is but a badge of slavery."

Mary Wollstonecraft, 19th c. feminist

"To dress beautifully, to make the exterior showy, attractive, charming - is the great thought instilled into girls, from their first consciousness; and it does more to ruin all true womanly character, to make them vain, useless, and empty-headed, than any other simple idea ever taught them."

Harriet Austin, 1864, dress reformer

"Never eat more than you can lift"

Miss Piggy, 20th c. feminist

On Womyns Ways of Knowing

"Listen: There once was a king sitting on his throne. Around him stood great and wonderfully beautiful columns ornamented with ivory, bearing the banners of the king with great honour. Then it pleased the king to raise a small feather from the ground and he commanded it to fly. The feather flew, not because of anything in itself, but because the air bore it along. Thus am I...a feather on the breath of God."

Hildegard of Bingen, 12th c. Abbess

"You will often reach patients and cure them by scientific use of your humanity."

Dr. Clara Marshall, 19th c. Dean of Students

"No two plants are exactly alike. They're all different, and as a consequence, you have to know that difference. I start with the seedling, and I don't want to leave it. I don't feel I really know the story if I don't watch the plant all the way along. So I know every plant in the field. I know them intimately, and I find it a great pleasure to know them."

Dr. Barbara McClintock, 20th c. Nobel Laureate

"I study the beautiful, the living, the individual bird, and to my scientific brothers, I leave his skin, his bones, and his place in the temple of fame."

Olive Thorn Miller, 19th c. ornithologist

On a Life in Physics

"I've always felt that in physics you must have total commitment...It's not a job; it's my whole life."

Dr. Chien-Shiung Wu, 20th c. physicist

"I have a great deal of work, what with the housekeeping, the children, the teaching and the laboratory, and I don't know how I shall manage it all."

Dr. Marie Curie, letter to her brother, Jozef

"Life need not be easy provided only that it was not empty."

Dr. Lise Meitner, 20th c. physicist

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