We hear much of chivalry of men towards women; but ... it vanishes like dew before the summer sun when one of us comes into competition with the manly sex. Let a woman sit, weep, wring her hands, and exult in her own helplessness, and the modern knight buckles on his imaginary breastplate and draws his sword in her behalf; but when the woman girds up her loins for the battle of life, ready to fight like a lioness, if need be, to put food in the mouths of her children, let her select for her field the living-room or the cooking range.
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Universal manhood suffrage, by establishing an aristocracy of sex, imposes upon the women of this nation a more absolute and cruel despotism than monarchy; in that, woman finds a political master in her father, husband, brother, son. The aristocracies of the old world are based upon birth, wealth, refinement, education, nobility, brave deeds of chivalry; in this nation, on sex alone; exalting brute force above moral power, vice above virtue, ignorance above education, and the son above the mother who bore him.
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The odious and disgusting aristocracy of wealth is built upon the ruins of all that is good in chivalry or republicanism; and luxury is the forerunner of a barbarism scarcely capable of cure.
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Chivalry is the most delicate form of contempt.
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Marriage is like a war. There are moments of chivalry and gallantry that attend the victorious advances and strategic retreats, the birth or d...
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There is another side to chivalry. If it dispenses leniency, it may with equal justification invoke control.
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I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards to avenge even a look that threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone.
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Cervantes smiled Spain's chivalry away A single laugh demolished the right arm Of his country.
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The age of chivalry is past. Bores have succeeded to dragons.
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'Distinguishing a true gentleman is his instinctive chivalry at all times and on all occasions toward the weak and defenseless, be it human or be it nonhuman.'
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But the age of chivalry is gone. That of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded; and the glory of Europe is extinguished forever.
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The motto of chivalry is also the motto of wisdom; to serve all, but love only one.
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