Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotes by Jeannette Rankin (American Politician)

Jeannette Rankin (1880–1973) was an American feminist and pacifist. The first woman member of the U.S. Congress (1917–19, 1941–43,) Rankin was a spirited feminist and a lifetime pacifist and crusader for social and electoral reform.

Born near Missoula, Montana, Rankin was educated at the University of Montana and the New York School of Philanthropy and became a social worker in Seattle (1909,) where she involved herself in the women’s rights movement. In 1914, she was appointed legislative secretary of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, and in 1916 was elected to the House of Representatives as a Republican, becoming the first woman to serve in Congress.

During her two terms (1917–19, 1941–43,) Rankin promoted labor reform and health care, and women’s rights and was instrumental in adopting the first bill granting married women independent citizenship. She was the only member of Congress to vote against U.S. participation in both world wars.

Rankin continued to campaign for peace and women’s issues throughout her career and worked for the National Council for the Prevention of War 1928–39. In 1968, at the age of 87, she led the Jeannette Rankin Brigade, a 5,000 women who marched on Capitol Hill, Washington, to protest against the Vietnam War.

American historian Hannah Josephson wrote the biography Jeannette Rankin: First Lady in Congress (1974.)

More: Wikipedia READ: Works by Jeannette Rankin

What one decides to do in crisis depends on one’s philosophy of life, and that philosophy cannot be changed by an incident. If one hasn’t any philosophy in crises, others make the decision.
Jeannette Rankin
Topics: Crises

You can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake.
Jeannette Rankin
Topics: War

Men and women are like right and left hands: it doesn’t make sense not to use both.
Jeannette Rankin

The individual woman is required a thousand times a day to choose either to accept her appointed role and thereby rescue her good disposition out of the wreckage of her self-respect, or else follow an independent line of behavior and rescue her self-respect out of the wreckage of her good disposition.
Jeannette Rankin
Topics: Self-respect, Women

I want to stand by my country, but I cannot vote for war. I vote no.
Jeannette Rankin

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