To do so carries no conviction nor prophetic knowledge of what must be next, as a necessary sequence.
Victoria C. Woodhull
The Public Record
Victoria Claflin Woodhull, later Victoria Woodhull Martin, was an American leader of the women's suffrage movement who ran for president of the United States in the 1872 election. While many historians and authors agree that Woodhull was the first woman to run for the presidency, some disagree with classifying it as a true candidacy because according to the Constitution she would have been too young to be president if elected.
gutenberg.org
The chief value, then, of an intimate knowledge of the past is, that from it the future may be foreseen, and that the lesson it teaches may assist in the formation of aids to the natural order of things.
The present is a part of the common order of the universe, extending infinitely backward and forward—a part of the line of evolvement, neither end of which can be compassed by human mind; and if we would learn well, we must learn all there…
Thus I could continue analysis upon analysis, until not a stone in the foundations of our social structure would be left unturned, and all would be found unworthy of our civilization—our boasted Christian civilization.
I think Christianity has been preached at, long enough.
I go for making a practical application of it at the very foundations of society.
Christ and his Disciples and the multitude which he gathered together had all things in common.
But every pulpit and every paper in this Christian country launch the thunders of their denunciations when that damnable doctrine is now advanced.
Now, Christ was a Communist of the strictest sort, and so am I, and of the most extreme kind.
I believe that God is the Father of all humanity and that we are brothers and sisters; and that it is not merely a theoretical or hypothetical nothing but a stern reality, to be reduced to a practical recognition.
And they who cannot accept and practice this doctrine of Christ, and who still profess to be his followers, are simply stealing the livery of Christ in which to serve the devil in their own souls.
Charity, with its long cloak of justice escaped, has long enough covered a multitude of sins.