10 quotes from Edith Stein on what it means to be a woman 

Edith Stein, pictured as a student in 1913-1914. / Credit: Public domain

CNA Staff, Aug 9, 2024 / 04:00 am (CNA).

On Aug. 9 the Catholic Church celebrates the life of philosopher, writer, and religious sister St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, more commonly known as Edith Stein.

Born in Breslau, Prussia (now Wroclaw, Poland), Stein was raised Jewish but declared herself an atheist at the age of 15. Later, while working as a philosopher, she converted to Catholicism after reading the autobiography of St. Teresa of Ávila. She later entered the Carmelite order, taking the name Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, living there until she was arrested by the Gestapo on Aprll 2, 1942.

She died in a Nazi concentration camp at Auschwitz on Aug. 9, 1942. Pope John Paul II canonized her in 1998 and proclaimed her a co-patroness of Europe the following year. Earlier this year, the Discalced Carmelites petitioned for her to be declared a doctor of the Church. 

Stein is known for her essays on women and education, among many other philosophical dissertations. Here are some of her best quotes about what it means to be a woman from her writings on women.

1. “A woman’s soul is … fashioned to be a shelter in which other souls may unfold.”  

2. “Each woman who lives in the light of eternity can fulfill her vocation no matter if it is in marriage, in a religious order, or in a worldly profession.”

3. “The soul of woman must be expansive and open to all human beings; it must be quiet so that no small weak flame will be extinguished by stormy winds; warm so as not to benumb fragile buds; clear, so that no vermin will settle in dark corners and recesses; self-contained, so that no invasions from without can peril the inner life; empty of itself, in order that extraneous life may have room in it; finally, mistress of itself and also of its body, so that the entire person is readily at the disposal of every call.”

4. “Women naturally seek to embrace that which is living, personal, and whole.”

5. “Only the person blinded by the passion of controversy could deny that woman in soul and body is created for a particular purpose … woman is destined to be wife and mother. Both physically and spiritually, she is endowed for this purpose.”

6. “Both spiritual companionship and spiritual motherliness are not limited to the physical spouse and mother relationships, but they extend to all people with whom woman comes into contact.”

7. “The deepest feminine yearning is to achieve a loving union which, in its development, validates this maturation and simultaneously stimulates and furthers the desire for perfection in others … such yearning is an essential aspect of the eternal destiny of woman.”

8. “[H]er body and soul are fashioned less to fight and to conquer than to cherish, guard, and preserve.”

9. “A quality unique to woman is her singular sensitivity to moral values and an abhorrence for all which is low and mean.”

10. “Woman’s soul is present and lives more intensely in all parts of the body, and it is inwardly affected by that which happens to the body.”