A great deal of what many Americans hold dear is nowhere written on those four pages of parchment, or in any of the amendments. What has made the Constitution durable is the same as what makes it demanding: the fact that so much was left out.

— Jill Lepore

All feminists are suffragists, but not all suffragists are feminists," as one feminist explained.

— Jill Lepore

And that's the point; not even girls want to be girls so long as our feminine archetype lacks force, strength and power. Not wanting to be girls, they don't want to be tender, submissive, peace-loving as good women are. Women's strong qualities have become despised because of their week ones.

— Jill Lepore

And that's the point! Not even girls want to be girls so long as our feminine archetype lacks force strength power. Not wanting to be girls, they don't want to be tender, submissive, peace-loving as good women are. Women's strong qualities have become despised because of their week ones.

— Jill Lepore

Feminists in Greenwich Village had begun bobbing their hair in 1912. In 1915, it was still radical. “The idea, it seems, came from Russia,” the New York Times reported. “The intellectual women of that country were revolutionaries. For convenience in disguising themselves when the police trailed them, they cropped their hair.” 2 Holloway was something of a revolutionary, too.

— Jill Lepore

History is hereditary only in this way: we, all of us, inherit everything, and then we choose what to cherish, what to disavow, and what do next, which is why it's worth trying to know where things come from.

— Jill Lepore

Innovation and disruption are ideas that originated in the arena of business but which have since been applied to arenas whose values and goals are remote from the values and goals of business. People aren’t disk drives. Public schools, colleges and universities, churches, museums, and many hospitals, all of which have been subjected to disruptive innovation, have revenues and expenses and infrastructures, but they aren’t industries in the same way that manufacturers of hard-disk drives or truck engines or dry goods are industries. Journalism isn’t an industry in that sense, either. Doctors have obligations to their patients, teachers to their students, pastors to their congregations, curators to the public, and journalists to their readers--obligations that lie outside the realm of earnings, and are fundamentally different from the obligations that a business executive has to employees, partners, and investors. Historically, institutions like museums, hospitals, schools, and universities have been supported by patronage, donations made by individuals or funding from church or state. The press has generally supported itself by charging subscribers and selling advertising. (Underwriting by corporations and foundations is a funding source of more recent vintage.) Charging for admission, membership, subscriptions and, for some, earning profits are similarities these institutions have with businesses. Still, that doesn’t make them industries, which turn things into commodities and sell them for gain.

— Jill Lepore

It feels silly to watch endless hours of winter sports every four years, when we never watch them any other time, and we don't even understand the rules, which doesn't stop us from scoring everyone, every run, every skate, every race.

— Jill Lepore

Mary Woolly wasn't only a suffragist; she was also a feminist. "Feminism is not a prejudice," she said, "It is a principle.

— Jill Lepore

Modern political science started in the late nineteenth century as a branch of history.

— Jill Lepore