—Eleanor Robson Belmont, an actress and opera singer who, upon marrying a millionaire, threw herself into charity and art; as a Red Cross representative during World War I, she braved the danger of German U-boats to cross the Atlantic and inspect US Army camps based in Europe
I can do anything.
I speak my mind.
I am intelligent.
You have to be taught to be second class; you’re not born that way.
—Lena Horne, a singer, actress, and civil rights activist who turned down any roles that stereotyped African American women, despite the controversy which her more-than-reasonable refusals caused at the time; she succeeded by finding other, more dignified roles and through her singing career
In southern Spain, they made me eat a bull’s testicles. They were really garlicky, which I don’t like. I prefer to take a bull by the horns.
—Padma Lakshmi, food expert, actress, model, businesswoman, Emmy-nominated TV show host, and New York Times bestselling author; her unprecedented career has taken her around the world
After me there are no more jazz singers.
—Betty Carter, a jazz singer known for her creative improvisation; she was practically the living embodiment of the saying “My way or the highway,” refusing to drop her own interpretation of jazz to produce more mainstream music
Women need not always keep their mouths shut and their wombs open.
—Emma Goldman, a writer and activist who refused to allow her opponents to keep her silent, protesting war and advocating for women’s rights
Badass to the Bone:
Teenage immigrant Emma Goldman had escaped from Russia in 1885, after witnessing the wholesale slaughter of idealist political rebel anarchists who called themselves the Nihilists. The following year, this young woman, who seemed “born to ride the whirlwinds,” learned that America was not immune to political violence. Across the country, anarchists were joining socialists and others in agitating for stronger labor laws to protect workers, including an eight-hour workday. In Chicago, May Day 1886 brought tensions to a boil; on May 3, police opened fire on a crowd of strikers at a factory, killing at least two. The following day, anarchists held a demonstration in Haymarket Square which started out peacefully, but when the police ordered the protestors to disperse, someone threw a bomb and police cleared the square with gunfire. Anarchists were blamed and arrested, Chicago’s power elite cracked down on labor and immigrant groups, and the press flew into a hysteria against anarchism. Amid this swirl of popular prejudice, a hostile judge presided over a trial that condemned seven anarchists to death.
The Haymarket affair, rather than scare her away from the politics of idealism forever, drew young Emma further toward the kind of political passion that risked death for principles. She “devoured every line on anarchism I could get,” as she notes in her autobiography, Living My Life, “and headed for New York City, command central in the 1890s for radicals of many stripes.”
In New York, Emma met one of the anarchists whose writing she’d been devouring, Johann Most, who encouraged her to develop her gift for public speaking. Emma worked as a practical nurse in New York’s ghettos, where she saw the price women paid for want of any birth control. Soon she was taking to the soapbox to air her views on this lack of available contraception and the resulting reliance on back-alley abortions. Her campaign reached the ears of Margaret Sanger and influenced the development of a national birth control campaign.
She continued to mesmerize crowds with her impassioned speeches until 1917, when her opposition to World War I led to a two-year imprisonment. She was subsequently deported, since the Justice Department was fearful of allowing her to continue her antiwar campaign: “She is womanly, a remarkable orator, tremendously sincere, and carries conviction. If she is allowed to continue here she cannot help but have great influence.”
She continued to exercise influence from abroad and in 1922, The Nation magazine named her one of “the twelve greatest living women.” She was allowed back into the country—after her death, when the government apparently felt that her silenced corpse would pose no risk to the American way of life—and she was buried in Chicago, alongside the Haymarket martyrs.
When I fight, there is usually a funeral and it isn’t mine.
—Henrietta Green, the wealthiest American woman of her time; after inheriting about ten million dollars from her father and aunt, she worked on Wall Street and as a moneylender to grow her already considerable fortune—not that you could tell from her thrifty lifestyle
I’m as strong as a man. Girls attract less attention in the frontier zone than men.
—Andrée de Jongh, code name Dédée (which means “little mother”), a member of the WWII Belgian Resistance who was awarded the Medal of Freedom with Golden Palm for leading more than a hundred Allied soldiers across occupied France to safety in Spain
I will defend myself.
I am a winner.
I am a warrior.
We are not interested in the possibilities of defeat. They do not exist.
—Victoria, Queen of England and Britain’s second-longest reigning monarch (outlasted only by Queen Elizabeth II), who spearheaded England’s Victorian Era with her stringent personality, morals, and ethics
Please give me some good advice in your next letter. I promise not to follow it.
—Edna St. Vincent Millay, a poet and playwright who made waves with her focus on female sexuality and feminism
Passivity and quietism are invitations to war.
—Dorothy Thompson, the First Lady of American Journalism, whose syndicated column “On the Record” was read by millions of people nationwide
If I ever did manage to find a law to live by, I would break it.
—Exene Cervenka, whose punk rock band X was started with a new friend she met at a poetry workshop
The question is not whether we will die, but how we will live.
—Dr. Joan Borysenko, physician, cofounder of a Mind/Body Clinic associated with Harvard Medical School, and New York Times bestselling author
I will follow my gut.
I will do things my way.
I fight for my beliefs.
If you send up a weathervane or put your thumb up in the air every time you want to do something different, to find out what people are going to think about it, you’re going to limit yourself. That’s a very strange way to live.
—Jessye Norman, an international opera singer with an exceptional vocal range; she was winner of the 1968 International Music Competition of the German Broadcasting