"Man, born of woman, has found it a hard thing to forgive her for giving him birth. The patriarchal protest against the ancient matriarch has borne strange fruit through the years."
"Segregation is evil; there is no pattern of life which can dehumanize men as can the way of segregation."
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Source: Acceptance speech for the Charles S. Johnson Award at Fisk University, 1966.
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More quotes by Lillian Smith
"Faith and doubt both are needed - not as antagonists, but working side by side to take us around the unknown curve."
"When you stop learning, stop listening, stop looking and asking questions, always new questions, then it is time to die."
"The human heart dares not stay away too long from that which hurt it most. There is a return journey to anguish that few of us are released from making."
"The point of life is to find the delicate equilibrium between dream and reality."
"Belief in Some One's right to punish you is the fate of all children in Judaic-Christian culture. But nowhere else, perhaps, have the rich seed-beds of Western homes found such a growing climate for guilt as is produced in the South by the combination of a warm moist evangelism and racial segregation."