"One may not reach the dawn save by the path of the night"
About this Quote
Coming from an activist whose work rattled the comfortable certainties of second-wave feminism, the subtext is political as much as personal. Liberation isn’t a seminar you attend; it’s the messy, often isolating process of confronting what you’ve been taught to desire, fear, and tolerate. “Night” carries the weight of backlash, internal conflict, and the social penalties of refusing your assigned role. It also hints at the psychic cost: the period when old narratives have been dismantled but new ones haven’t fully formed, leaving you in a liminal darkness that can look, from the outside, like failure.
The line works because it refuses catharsis without contradiction. It doesn’t romanticize suffering, but it insists on its inevitability when you challenge entrenched power or remake a life. Dawn isn’t a gift; it’s a consequence. And the night, in Greer’s telling, isn’t an obstacle to the path. It is the path.
Quote Details
| Topic | New Beginnings |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite | Cite this Quote |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Greer, Germaine. (n.d.). One may not reach the dawn save by the path of the night. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/one-may-not-reach-the-dawn-save-by-the-path-of-62217/
Chicago Style
Greer, Germaine. "One may not reach the dawn save by the path of the night." FixQuotes. Accessed February 3, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/one-may-not-reach-the-dawn-save-by-the-path-of-62217/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"One may not reach the dawn save by the path of the night." FixQuotes, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/one-may-not-reach-the-dawn-save-by-the-path-of-62217/. Accessed 3 Feb. 2026.










