The Quotable Nerdy Chick: Harriet Beecher Stowe

Did you know that Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896) wrote over thirty books? I didn’t. I knew only of one of her titles: Uncle Tom’s Cabin. It is said that when Abraham Lincoln met her, he said, “”So you’re the little woman who wrote the book that started this great war.”  Uncle Tom’s Cabin was, of course, the little book. If you visit the website for The Harriet Beecher Stowe Center, you will find out many interesting things you may not have known about this woman whose most famous book was published in 1851 and who continued working to fight social injustice for over four decades following its publication. The first quote below explains her rationale for writing Uncle Tom’s Cabin. I think it’s a beautiful statement.

Harriet Beecher Stowe Quotes

  • I wrote what I did because as a woman, as a mother, I was oppressed and broken-hearted with the sorrows and injustice I saw, because as a Christian I felt the dishonor to Christianity – because as a lover of my county, I trembled at the coming day of wrath.
  • A woman’s health is her capital.
  • Any mind that is capable of real sorrow is capable of good.
  • Most mothers are instinctive philosophers.
  • So much has been said and sung of beautiful young girls, why don’t somebody wake up to the beauty of old women?
  • Women are the real architects of society.

Quotable Nerdy Chicks: Maya Lin

I’m so glad I was reintroduced to the work of Maya Lin through my son who studied her recently in school. If you don’t already know this, Lin designed the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall in Washington D. C. while she was still an undergraduate student. When I was in college, one of my friends was among the first to visit that memorial. She found the name of another friend’s father on the memorial and brought back a framed pencil rubbing of it. I will never forget how touched my friend, whose father was killed before she could meet him, was by that gift. The Vietnam Memorial has touched countless others since its installation.

Lin has designed other amazing structures and done other amazing things. You can read more about them at her own beautifully designed website. www.mayalin.com She currently owns and operates Maya Lin Studio in New York City.

 Maya Lin Quotes

  • I loved school. I studied like crazy. I was a Class A nerd.
  • I was always making things. Even though art was what I did every day, it didn’t even occur to me that I would be an artist.
  • I try to give people a different way of looking at their surroundings. That’s art to me.
  • All my work is much more peaceful than I am.
  • To fly we have to have resistance.
  • How we are using up our home, how we are living and polluting the planet is frightening. It was evident when I was a child. It’s more evident now.

Now. Go visit her website. Move your cursor to make things happen!

The Quotable Nerdy Chick

Here are a few of my favorite nerdy chick quotes:

Life is not easy for any of us. But what of that? We must have perseverance and above all confidence in ourselves. We must believe that we are gifted for something and that this thing must be attained.

— Marie Curie, scientist

In soloing – as in other activities – it is far easier to start something than it is to finish it.

— Amelia Earhardt, aviator

Cautious, careful people, always casting about to preserve their reputations… can never effect a reform.

–Susan B. Anthony, activist

A woman is like a tea bag — you can’t tell how strong she is until you put her in hot water.

— Eleanor Roosevelt, activist

I would take every fairy tale that ends with the princess being rescued by Prince Charming and make the princess rescue herself.

— Sudipta Bardhan-Quallen, author

Trust yourself. Create the kind of self that you will be happy to live with all your life. Make the most of yourself by fanning the tiny, inner sparks of possibility into flames of achievement.

–Golda Meir, politician

Things will come to you when you are ready for them (be they boyfriends, certain experiences, certain achievements).

— Aimee Friedman, author and editor

If it is who you are, then it is cool.

— Audrey Williams, Director of Educational Technology

That I did not fail was due in part to patience….

–Jane Goodall, primatologist 

Our doubts are traitors and make us lose the good we often might win, by fearing to attempt.

— Jane Addams, social reformer

We don’t accomplish anything in this world alone… and whatever happens is the result of the whole tapestry of one’s life and all the weavings of individual threads form one to another that creates something.

–Sandra Day O’Connor, Supreme Court Justice

Ask yourself: Have you been kind today? Make kindness your daily modus operandi and change your world.

–Annie Lennox

It is good to have an end to journey toward, but it is the journey that matters in the end.

–Urusla K. Le Guin, author

Never be limited by other people’s limited imaginations…If you adopt their attitudes, then the possibility won’t exist because you’ll have already shut it out … You can hear other people’s wisdom, but you’ve got to re-evaluate the world for yourself.

–Mae Jemison, Astronaut

I’ll be adding to this short list soon. Do you have a favorite nerdy chick quote?  Please leave a comment here and share it!