Elizabeth Blackwell

My aim was to prove that a woman could be a physician, and a lady at the same time.

The medical profession needs the gentle hand and sympathetic heart of woman.

I have lived to see a great change in public opinion regarding women in medicine.

The true measure of a society is how it treats its women.

I have never sought fame or fortune, but only the opportunity to serve humanity.

It is not easy to be a pioneer – but oh, it is fascinating! I would not trade one moment, even the worst moment, for all the riches in the world.

The idea of winning a doctor's degree gradually assumed the aspect of a great moral struggle, and the moral fight possessed immense attraction for me.

If society will not admit of woman's free development, then society must be remodeled.

For what is done or learned by one class of women becomes, by virtue of their common womanhood, the property of all women.

The physical and domestic education of children should be considered as a sacred duty, and one of the most important occupations of women.

A blank wall of social and professional antagonism faces the woman physician that forms a situation of singular and painful loneliness, leaving her without support, respect or professional counsel.

I understand now why this life has never been lived before. It is hard, with no support but a high purpose, to live against every species of social opposition.

Medicine is so broad a field, so closely interwoven with general interests, dealing as it does with all ages, sexes, and classes, and yet of so personal a character in its individual applications, that it must be regarded as one of those great departments of work in which the cooperation of men and women is needed to fulfill all its requirements.

The true physician must possess the essential qualities of a teacher, and the true teacher must have the essential qualities of a physician.

Our school education ignores, in a thousand ways, the rules of healthy development.

It is a painful fact, that the present training of women in no way fits them to be the mothers, guides, or physicians of their own sex.

I am watching, with much interest, the development of our new hospital. It is a great experiment, and I feel the deepest anxiety for its success.

The human body is a sacred temple, and should be treated with reverence and understanding.

Let women be true to their inward convictions, and they will, in time, revolutionize the world.

A love of impartial truth and justice is the only safe foundation for medical practice.