Selected Dorothea Dix Quotations
• I think even lying on my bed I can still do something. [attributed, possibly incorrectly]
• The tapestry of history has no point at which you can cut it and leave the design intelligible.
• In a world where there is so much to be done, I felt strongly impressed that there must be something for me to do.
• Society, during the last hundred years, has been alternately perplexed and encouraged, respecting the two great questions --how shall the criminal and pauper be disposed of, in order to reduce crime and reform the criminal on the one hand, and, on the other, to diminish pauperism and restore the pauper to useful citizenship? [Remarks on Prisons and Prison Discipline in the United States]
• A man usually values that most for which he has labored; he uses that most frugally which he has toiled hour by hour and day by day to acquire.
• While we diminish the stimulant of fear, we must increase to prisoners the incitements of hope: in proportion as we extinguish the terrors of the law, we should awaken and strengthen the control of the conscience. [emphasis in original]
• Man is not made better by being degraded; he is seldom restrained from crime by harsh measures, except the principle of fear predominates in his character; and then he is never made radically better for its influence.
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About These Quotes
Quote collection assembled by Jone Johnson Lewis. Each quotation page in this collection and the entire collection © Jone Johnson Lewis 1997-2009. This is an informal collection assembled over many years. I regret that I am not be able to provide the original source if it is not listed with the quote.
Citation information:
Jone Johnson Lewis. "Dorothea Dix Quotes." About Women's History. URL: http://womenshistory.about.com/od/quotes/a/dorothea_dix.htm . Date accessed: (today). (More on how to cite online sources including this page)
