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Who really said it

Cautious, careful people always casting about to preserve their reputation can never effect a reform

Written by Susan B. Anthony 1820–1906 · American suffragist & social reformer
Verified Free to reuse

Documented as Anthony’s own words by her authorized biographer, Ida Husted Harper, who quotes the passage from the 1860 divorce-law-reform fight — introducing it “Miss Anthony wrote at this time…” (Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony, Vol. I, p. 197). Her documented sentence ends “…never can bring about a reform”; the short version shown here (“…can never effect a reform”) is a lightly compressed paraphrase of it.

Last verified 9 Jul 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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“Cautious, careful people always casting about to preserve their reputation can never effect a reform” Susan B. Anthony — documented in her authorized biography (Ida Husted Harper, 1899, Vol. I, p. 197) from her 1860 divorce-law-reform campaign; the popular one-line wording is a compressed paraphrase of her sentence.

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Provenance

What the record shows

Documented in
“The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony” (Ida Husted Harper, 1899), Vol. I, p. 197
Written by
Susan B. Anthony, in 1860
Documented wording
“…never can bring about a reform.”
Popular wording
“…can never effect a reform” — a compressed paraphrase

Cautious, careful people, always casting about to preserve their reputation and social standing, never can bring about a reform. Those who are really in earnest must be willing to be anything or nothing in the world’s estimation, and publicly and privately, in season and out, avow their sympathy with despised and persecuted ideas and their advocates, and bear the consequences.

This is the passage exactly as Anthony’s authorized biographer records it (Harper, Vol. I, p. 197), from the 1860 divorce-reform fight. The short one-liner shown at the top of this page (“…can never effect a reform”) is a lightly compressed paraphrase of its first sentence.

Harper, Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Vol. I, p. 197)

Provenance trail

  • Anthony’s authorized biographer quotes this passage verbatim in Ida Husted Harper, The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony ↗ (Vol. I, ch. XII, p. 197), introducing it “Miss Anthony wrote at this time…” in the chapter on the 1860 divorce-law-reform fight (“Rift in Common Law — Divorce Question. 1860”).
  • Quotation archives repeat the passage under a speech-style label, “On the Campaign for Divorce Law Reform” (1860) — e.g. WIST Quotations ↗ and Wikiquote ↗ — but Harper presents it as something Anthony wrote at the time, not a titled address; the “speech” title is the aggregators’, not the record’s.
  • The 1860 divorce debate that occasioned the passage is itself recorded in the History of Woman Suffrage, Vol. I ↗.
Public domain

First published in Ida Husted Harper’s The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (1899); Anthony died in 1906 and all her writings appeared well before 1931. The text is long out of copyright and in the public domain.

Fact-check

How to read this attribution

The quote is genuinely Anthony’s — her authorized biographer records it in her own words. Two smaller things are commonly imprecise: the exact wording, and the “speech” title aggregators attach to it.

A modern paraphrase reworded

Harper records “…always casting about to preserve their reputation and social standing, never can bring about a reform.” The popular one-liner drops “and social standing” and swaps in “can never effect a reform” — a tidier restatement of her documented sentence (Harper, p. 197 ↗).

Quotation aggregators mislabeled

Quote sites file the passage under a speech title, “On the Campaign for Divorce Law Reform” (1860) — e.g. WIST ↗. Harper, though, introduces it as something Anthony wrote at the time (Vol. I, p. 197 ↗), not a titled address; the speech label is the aggregators’, not the record’s.

The words are Anthony’s, documented by her authorized biographer in the 1860 divorce-reform context; only the popular one-line phrasing is a compressed paraphrase. There is no Quote Investigator ↗ ruling on it, but Harper settles the substance.

Context

Why it is tied to 1860

At the May 1860 National Woman’s Rights Convention, Elizabeth Cady Stanton introduced resolutions arguing that women should be able to obtain divorce for cause. The proposal split the movement: even the abolitionist ally Wendell Phillips tried to strike the resolutions from the record, and Anthony stood with Stanton in defending them.

This passage belongs to that fight — a defense of taking unpopular positions rather than protecting one’s standing. The sentiment fits Anthony precisely, and her authorized biographer records her writing it during exactly this episode.

“…willing to be anything or nothing in the world’s estimation…”

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Courage Change Justice

Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

Susan B. Anthonyen.wikiquote.org

Lists the passage with its fuller wording and the 1860 divorce-reform source label.
On the Campaign for Divorce Law Reform (1860)wist.info

Aggregator entry using the speech-style label ‘On the Campaign for Divorce Law Reform’ (1860).
Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony, Vol. Igutenberg.org

Harper’s authorized biography; quotes this passage verbatim on p. 197 as Anthony’s own words (“Miss Anthony wrote at this time…”).
History of Woman Suffrage, Vol. I (1848–1861)gutenberg.org

Primary record of the 1860 divorce debate that occasioned the passage.
Susan B. Anthony (biography)en.wikipedia.org

Life, dates, and the 1860 divorce-reform episode in context.
National Susan B. Anthony Museum & Housesusanb.org

Institution stewarding Anthony’s legacy and documentary record.

About the credited author

Susan B. Anthony

Susan B. Anthony

1820–1906 · American suffragist & social reformer

Susan B. Anthony (1820–1906) was a Quaker-raised abolitionist, temperance worker, and the organizational engine of the American woman-suffrage movement, working for decades alongside Elizabeth Cady Stanton. In 1860 the two pushed the National Woman’s Rights Convention to take up divorce-law reform — a stance so controversial that even allies like Wendell Phillips recoiled, the context to which this quotation is usually tied. Anthony’s own words survive mainly in her diaries, letters, the newspaper The Revolution, and Ida Husted Harper’s authorized biography.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Primary source — Chicago

Susan B. Anthony, quoted in Ida Husted Harper, The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony, Vol. I (Indianapolis: Bowen-Merrill, 1899), ch. XII, p. 197, from the 1860 divorce-law-reform campaign (“Miss Anthony wrote at this time…”). The one-line version commonly quoted (“…can never effect a reform”) is a compressed paraphrase of Harper’s text (“…never can bring about a reform”).

MLA (9th ed.)

Harper, Ida Husted. The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony. Vol. 1, Bowen-Merrill, 1899, p. 197.

APA (7th ed.)

Harper, I. H. (1899). The life and work of Susan B. Anthony (Vol. 1). Bowen-Merrill.

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Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘Cautious, careful people always casting about to preserve their reputation can never effect a reform’?” Last verified 9 Jul 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/cautious-careful-people-always-casting-about-to-preserve

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