Charlotte Perkins Gilman

“ That is the name we earn. Sometimes even that is changed, or added to, in an unusually rich life. Such as our present Land Mother--what you call president or king, I believe. She was called Mera, even as a child; that means `thinker.' Later there was added Du--Du-Mera --the wise thinker, and now we all know her as O-du-mera-- great and wise thinker. You shall meet her."
"No surnames at all then?" pursued Terry, with his somewhat patronizing air. "No family name?"
"Why no," she said. "Why should we? We are all descended from a common source--all one `family' in reality. ”

“ Each one of us has our exact line of descent all the way back to our dear First Mother. There are many reasons for doing that. But as to everyone knowing which child belongs to which mother--why should she? ”

“ When a given line of observation seemed to lead to some very dreadful inference they always gave us the benefit of the doubt, leaving it open to further knowledge. Some of the things we had grown to accept as perfectly natural, or as belonging to our human limitations, they literally could not have believed ”

“ They were tall, strong, healthy, and beautiful as a race, but differed individually in a wide range of feature, coloring, and expression.
"But surely the most important growth is in mind--and in the things we make," urged Somel. "Do you find your physical variation accompanied by a proportionate variation in ideas, feelings, and products? Or, among people who look more alike, do you find their internal life and their work as similar?" ”

“ With these women the most salient quality in all their institutions was reasonableness. When I dug into the records to follow out any line of development, that was the most astonishing thing--the conscious effort to make it better. ”

“ It may be that all these higher qualities were latent in the original mother, that careful education is bringing them out, and that our personal differences depend on slight variations in prenatal condition."
"I think it is more in your accumulated culture," Jeff suggested. "And in the amazing psychic growth you have made. We know very little about methods of real soul culture--and you seem to know a great deal."
Be that as it might, they certainly presented a higher level of active intelligence, and of behavior, than we had so far really grasped. ”

“ Our Growing Modesty Being at last considered sufficiently tamed and trained to be trusted with scissors, we barbered ourselves as best we could. A close-trimmed beard is certainly more comfortable than a full one. Razors, naturally, they could not supply.
"With so many old women you'd think there'd be some razors," sneered Terry. Whereat Jeff pointed out that he never before had seen such complete absence of facial hair on women. ”

“ They had early decided that trees were the best food plants, requiring far less labor in tilling the soil, and bearing a larger amount of food for the same ground space; also doing much to preserve and enrich the soil. ”

“ We were rather doubtful on this point, and inclined to hold that there was more chance of improvement in greater physical variation.
"It certainly should be," Zava admitted. "We have always thought it a grave initial misfortune to have lost half our little world. Perhaps that is one reason why we have so striven for conscious improvement."
"But acquired traits are not transmissible," Terry declared. ”

“ Upon which they wanted to know which method has been proved best--and we had to admit that so far as we knew there had been no attempt at comparison, each people pursuing its own custom in the fond conviction of superiority, and either despising or quite ignoring the others. ”

“ In one way you might say that we have more than we used to--that is, our standard of perfection seems to get farther and farther away. But we are not discouraged, because our records do show gain-- considerable gain. ”

“ But here, against the calm wisdom and quiet restrained humor of these women, with only that blessed Jeff and my inconspicuous self to compare with, Terry did stand out rather strong.
As "a man among men," he didn't; as a man among--I shall have to say, "females," he didn't ”

“ Having improved their agriculture to the highest point, and carefully estimated the number of persons who could comfortably live on their square miles; having then limited their population to that number, one would think that was all there was to be done. ”