Margaret Fuller Quotes
Margaret Fuller was a 19th-century American journalist, critic, and women's rights advocate, the first major figure of American feminist political thought and a central figure of the Transcendentalist movement. She edited The Dial, the principal Transcendentalist journal, from 1840 to 1842, and served as the literary critic of the New-York Tribune from 1844, becoming the first full-time book reviewer in American journalism. The quotes below are attributed to Margaret Fuller, organized by topic.
Browse Margaret Fuller by topic
Margaret Fuller on Freedom
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“Let them be sea-captains, if you will.”
(1845) Attributed in Gerda Lerner , The Majority Finds Its Past: Placing Women in History’’ (1979) -
“What woman needs is not as a woman to act or rule, but as a nature to grow, as an intellect to discern, as a soul to live freely and unimpeded.”
Woman in the Nineteenth Century, 1845
Margaret Fuller on God
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“Put up at the moment of greatest suffering a prayer, not for thy own escape, but for the enfranchisement of some being dear to thee, and the sovereign spirit will accept thy ransom.”
Recipe to prevent the cold of January from utterly destroying life" (30 January 1841), quoted in Margaret Fuller Ossoli (1898) by Thomas Wentworth Higginson , p. 97
Margaret Fuller on Happiness
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“How many persons must there be who cannot worship alone since they are content with so little.”
Letter to Rev. W. H. Channing (31 December 1843) quoted in Margaret Fuller Ossoli (1898) by Thomas Wentworth Higginson, p. 184
Margaret Fuller on Knowledge
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Attributed to Margaret Fuller:
“If you have knowledge, let others light their candles in it.”
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“Genius will live and thrive without training, but it does not the less reward the watering pot.”
Life of Sir James Mackintosh" in Papers on Literature and Art (1846), p. 50 -
Attributed to Margaret Fuller:
“Today a reader, tomorrow a leader.”
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“There are noble books but one wants the breath of life sometimes. And I see no divine person. I myself am more divine than any I see — I think that is enough to say about them...”
Letter to Ralph Waldo Emerson (1 March 1838); published in The Letters of Margaret Fuller vol. I, p. 327, , edited by Robert N. Hudspeth (1983) -
“Men disappoint me so, I disappoint myself so, yet courage, patience, shuffle the cards ...”
Letter to Reverend William Henry Channing (21 February 1841) quoted in Margaret Fuller Ossoli (1898) by Thomas Wentworth Higginson, p. 112 -
“It is astonishing what force, purity, and wisdom it requires for a human being to keep clear of falsehoods.”
Notes from Cambridge, Massachusetts (July 1842) published in Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli (1852), Vol. II, p. 64
Margaret Fuller on Life
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Attributed to Margaret Fuller:
“Men for the sake of getting a living forget to live.”
Margaret Fuller on Love
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Attributed to Margaret Fuller:
“We need not give up our peculiarities, our characteristic differences, in order to be one.”
Margaret Fuller on Truth
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“Might the simple maxim, that honesty is the best policy be laid to heart! Might a sense of the true aims of life elevate the tone of politics and trade, till public and private honor become identical!”
Summer On The Lakes, in 1843 (1844)
Margaret Fuller on Virtue
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“Beware of over-great pleasure in being popular or even beloved.”
Letter to her brother, (20 December 1840) as quoted in The Feminist Papers (1973) by Alice Rossi
Things actually not said by Margaret Fuller
A number of widely-shared lines are circulated as Margaret Fuller but are in fact from someone else. Did Margaret Fuller say these? No. Each entry below pairs the line with the person who actually wrote it.
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Did Margaret Fuller say this? No.
“Be what you would seem to be.”
This quote is commonly attributed to philosophers but its actual source is uncertain or unverified in the standard reference works. Wikiquote's note on this attribution: English proverb, used by many authors, including some prior to Margaret Fuller's time; Thomas Fuller expresses related thoughts in his "Panegyric" on Charles II, Section 21" in The History of the Worthies of England (1662):
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Did Margaret Fuller say this? No.
“When your dreams tire, they go underground and out of kindness that's where they stay.”
This quote is commonly attributed to philosophers but its actual source is uncertain or unverified in the standard reference works. Wikiquote's note on this attribution: Libby Houston, in the poem "Gold" in Necessity (1988).
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Did Margaret Fuller say this? No.
“When people keep telling you that you can't do a thing, you kind of like to try it.”
This quote is commonly attributed to philosophers but its actual source is uncertain or unverified in the standard reference works. Wikiquote's note on this attribution: Margaret Chase Smith , quoted in More Than Petticoats : Remarkable Maine Women (2005) by Kate Kennedy