I have endeavored to the best of my powers and ability to serve the cause of progress and humanity; to advocate what to me seemed the truth; to defend human nature from the libel cast upon it by superstition; to claim human rights irrespective of sex, country, or color-in fine, to devote and direct all my efforts to the elevation of the ignorant, the poor, and the oppressed...with an earnest desire my aim has been steadily directed onward and upward; and if my labors have not been as successful as I could wish, they have, I hope, at least to some extent, had the effect to eradicate error, to inculcate truth, and to instill charity and kindness for the failings and frailties of misdirected human nature.
— ERNESTINE ROSE