Quotes by Gordon Grant

“The degradation of women that he held up as ideal, she argued, had negative consequences for men, too. When husbands, fathers, and brothers are granted absolute power, their morality vanishes; they become tyrants. If men are allowed to act on their impulses without any checks on their behavior, they will be no better than animals. If women are trained to measure their worth solely by their ability to be attractive to men, then being loved will be the extent of their ambition. For a society to flourish, both men and women must have higher aspirations than these; they must also be governed by reason.””

“All took for granted that a society could not long remain republican if a tiny minority controlled most of the wealth and the bulk of the population remained dependent servants or poor landless laborers. Equality was related to independence””

“In their desire to root out tyranny once and for all, the members of the state conventions who drafted the new constitutions stripped the new elected governors of much of the power that the royal governors had exercised. No longer would governors have the authority to create electoral districts, control the meeting of the assemblies, veto legislation, grant lands, establish courts of law, issue charters of incorporation to towns, or, in some states, even pardon crimes.””

“They were great friends and each always spoke of the other with kindness and deep admiration. Being a child, the great compatibility between these two men I took for granted. Now I realize they created the structure, like the beams in a great barn, that are still there when life becomes too difficult, that keeps me going.””

“So it was that Lavinia fired a shot against Sue’s publication. Her protest to Ward laid out the law of ownership. A writer might give a manuscript to someone else, but the possessor is not the owner. Legally, the copyright on the writing remains with writer, and upon death transfers to the writer’s heir. On the basis of Emily’s will, which left Lavinia ‘everything’, Lavinia claimed (pushing the point) that Emily had granted her exclusive rights to her papers, and though Emily gave copies of poems to others they were given simply for private reading ‘and not to pass the property in them, which is mine’. Unsurprisingly Susan challenged this. She had lost her husband to Mabel. Her friendship with Lavinia was being destroyed and now the thing she held most dear, her private relationship with Emily, was being ripped from her. She sounds a little desperate as she writes to Ward: ‘the sister is quite jealous of my treasure … All[?] [the poems and letters] I have are mine”

“two versions of the contract with Roberts Brothers, arranged by E. D. Hardy who, that year, succeeded Mr Niles. One is the draft, sharing copyright and royalties with Todd. The other is the final version, in which Lavinia Dickinson retains exclusive copyright. The existence of two contracts was to provide ammunition for renewed battle in time to come. Mabel retained her copy of the draft contract which granted what she wanted. Lavinia retained her copy of the final contract which, in effect, deprived Mabel of what she wanted.””

“Children do not automatically grant us the authority to parent them just because we are adults, or just because we love them or think we know what is good for them or have their best interests at heart.””

“The Treaty of Tianjin and the Convention of Peking that ended the Second Opium War gave Kowloon – an area next to Hong Kong – to Britain, legalised the opium trade and granted Christians full civil rights. Importantly, foreign powers were given the right to carry Chinese workers to labour in their own lands and colonies. This launched the ‘coolie’ trade and Chinese workers were conveyed to work in plantations and mines in places such as Malaya, while in America they famously built the railroads.””

“At the risk of being simplistic, a railway metaphor comes to mind. John Wesley's marriage was a train wreck (Wesleyan historian, Henry Rack called it a 'disaster' and 'catastrophe'); [George] Whitefield's was a freight train (satisfactory but functional); and [John] Newton's was a scenic passenger train (enjoyable and relational).””

“Imprecatory psalms. Imprecatory psalms (Ps 12; 35; 52; 57”