But the paradox is here: when cultivated people do stay away from a certain portion of the population, when all social advantages are persistently withheld, it may be for years, the result itself is pointed to as a reason and is used as an argument for the continued withholding.

Jane Addams

Categorized in : Years People Population

Nothing could be worse than the fear that one had given up too soon, and left one unexpended effort that might have saved the world.

Jane Addams

stay-strong giving-up peace

Things that make us alike are finer and stronger than the things that make us different.

Jane Addams

stronger different

America's future will be determined by the home and the school. The child becomes largely what he is taught; hence we must watch what we teach, and how we live.

Jane Addams

future education children

What after all, has maintained the human race on this old globe despite all the calamities of nature and all the tragic failings of mankind, if not faith in new possibilities, and courage to advocate them?

Jane Addams

possibility failing race

The essence of immorality is the tendency to make an exception of myself.

Jane Addams

honesty integrity character

I am not one of those who believe - broadly speaking - that women are better than men. We have not wrecked railroads, nor corrupted legislatures, nor done many unholy things that men have done; but then we must remember that we have not had the chance.

Jane Addams

men believe history

Action indeed is the sole medium of expression for ethics.

Jane Addams

hull-house code-of-ethics expression

I believe that peace is not merely an absence of war but the nurture of human life, and that in time this nurture would do away with war as a natural process.

Jane Addams

war peace believe

The good we secure for ourselves is precarious and uncertain until it is secured for all of us and incorporated into our common life.

Jane Addams

equality inspiring peace

The lessons of great men and women are lost unless they reinforce upon our minds the highest demands which we make upon ourselves; they are lost unless they drive our sluggish wills forward in the direction of their highest ideas.

Jane Addams

wisdom men ideas

Civilization is a method of living, an attitude of equal respect for all men.

Jane Addams

army attitude men

Only in time of fear is government thrown back to its primitive and sole function of self-defense and the many interests of which it is the guardian become subordinate to that.

Jane Addams

government self fear

Much of the insensibility and hardness of the world is due to the lack of imagination which prevents a realization of the experiences of other people.

Jane Addams

empathy imagination people

As democracy modifies our conception of life, it constantly raises the value and function of each member of the community, however humble he may be.

Jane Addams

democracy community humble

With all the efforts made by modern society to nurture and educate the young, how stupid it is to permit the mothers of young children to spend themselves in the coarser work of the world!

Jane Addams

stupid mother children

Social advance depends quite as much upon an increase in moral sensibility as it does upon a sense of duty.

Jane Addams

moral charity doe

We forget that the accumulation of knowledge and the holding of convictions must finally result in the application of that knowledge and those convictions to life itself.

Jane Addams

conviction results forget

Old-fashioned ways which no longer apply to changed conditions are a snare in which the feet of women have always become readily entangled.

Jane Addams

women feet memorable

Perhaps I may record here my protest against the efforts, so often made, to shield children and young people from all that has to do with death and sorrow, to give them a good time at all hazards on the assumption that the ills of life will come soon enough. Young people themselves often resent this attitude on the part of their elders; they feel set aside and belittled as if they were denied the common human experiences.

Jane Addams

soon-enough attitude children

It is dreadful the way all the comfortable, happy people stay off to themselves.

Jane Addams

happy-people people way