“Man preys on man; and you mourn for the idle tapestry that decorated a gothic pillar, and the dronish bell that summoned the fat priest to prayer. You mourn for the empty pageant of a name, when slavery flaps her wing, ... Why is our fancy to be appalled by terrific perspectives of a hell beyond the grave? - Hell stalks abroad; - the lash resounds on the slave's naked sides; and the sick wretch, who can no longer earn the sour bread of unremitting labour, steals to a ditch to bid the world a long good night.”
“Friendship is a serious affection; the most sublime of all affections, because it is founded on principle, and cemented by time. The very reverse may be said of love. In a great degree, love and friendship cannot subsist in the same bosom; even when inspired by different objects they weaken or destroy each other, and for the same object can only be felt in succession. The vain fears and fond jealousies, the winds which fan the flame of love, when judiciously or artfully tempered, are both incompatible with the tender confidence and sincere respect of friendship.”
Source: A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
“As a sex, women are habitually indolent; and every thing tends to make them so.”
Source: A vindication of the rights of woman: with strictures on political and moral subjects
“Strengthen the female mind by enlarging it, and there will be an end to blind obedience; but, as blind obedience is ever sought for by power, tyrants and sensualists are in the right when they endeavor to keep women in the dark because, the former only want slaves, and the latter a play-thing.”
“From the respect paid to property flow, as from a poisoned fountain, most of the evils and vices which render this world such a dreary scene to the contemplative mind.”
Source: A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: Abridged with Related Texts
“At boarding schools of every description, the relaxation of the junior boys is mischief; and of the senior, vice.”
Source: A Vindication of the Rights of Men; A Vindication of the Rights of Woman; An Historical and Moral View of the French Revolution
“Women deluded by these sentiments, sometimes boast of their weakness, cunningly obtaining power by playing on the weakness of men; and they may well glory in their illicit sway, for, like Turkish bashaws, they have more real power than their masters: but virtue is sacrificed to temporary gratifications, and the respectability of life to the triumph of an hour.”
Source: A vindication of the rights of woman: with strictures on political and moral subjects
“The most perfect education ... is such an exercise of the understanding as is best calculated to strengthen the body and form the heart. Or, in other words, to enable the individual to attain such habits of virtue as will render it independent.”
Source: Wollstonecraft: A Vindication of the Rights of Men and a Vindication of the Rights of Woman and Hints
“The more equality there is established among men, the more virtue and happiness will reign in society.”
Source: Vindication of the Rights of Women
“Women all want to be ladies, which is simply to have nothing to do, but listlessly to go they scarcely care where, for they cannot tell what.”
Source: A Vindication of the Rights of Men; A Vindication of the Rights of Woman; An Historical and Moral View of the French Revolution
“Love, from its very nature, must be transitory.”
Source: Vindication of the Rights of Women
“The absurd duty, too often inculcated, of obeying a parent only on account of his being a parent, shackles the mind, and prepares it for a slavish submission to any power but reason.”
Source: A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
“I think I love most people best when they are in adversity; for pity is one of my prevailing passions.”
Source: The collected letters of Mary Wollstonecraft
“Men with common minds seldom break through general rules. Prudence is ever the resort of weakness; and they rarely go as far as as they may in any undertaking, who are determined not to go beyond it on any account.”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Mary Wollstonecraft (Illustrated)
“Age demands respect; youth, love.”
Source: A Vindication of the Rights of Men; A Vindication of the Rights of Woman; An Historical and Moral View of the French Revolution
“The birthright of man ... is such a degree of liberty, civil and religious, as is compatible with the liberty of every other individual with whom he is united in a social compact.”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Mary Wollstonecraft (Illustrated)
“Society can only be happy and free in proportion as it is virtuous.”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Mary Wollstonecraft (Illustrated)
“The two sexes mutually corrupt and improve each other.”
Source: A vindication of the rights of woman: with strictures on political and moral subjects
“Men and women must be educated, in a great degree, by the opinions and manners of the society they live in. In every age there has been a stream of popular opinion that has carried all before it, and given a family character, as it were, to the century. It may then fairly be inferred, that, till society be differently constituted, much cannot be expected from education.”
Source: Vindication of the Rights of Women
“People thinking for themselves have more energy in their voice, than any government, which it is possible for human wisdom to invent; and every government not aware of this sacred truth will, at some period, be suddenly overturned.”
Source: A Vindication of the Rights of Men; A Vindication of the Rights of Woman; An Historical and Moral View of the French Revolution
“Life cannot be seen by an unmoved spectator.”
Source: A vindication of the rights of woman: with strictures on political and moral subjects
“For years I have endeavored to calm an impetuous tide -- laboring to make my feelings take an orderly course -- it was striving against the stream.”
“[I]f we revert to history, we shall find that the women who have distinguished themselves have neither been the most beautiful nor the most gentle of their sex.”
Source: A Vindication of the Rights of Men; A Vindication of the Rights of Woman; An Historical and Moral View of the French Revolution
“An immoderate fondness for dress, for pleasure, and for sway, are the passions of savages; the passions that occupy those uncivilized beings who have not yet extended the dominion of the mind, or even learned to think with the energy necessary to concatenate that abstract train of thought which produces principles.... that women from their education and the present state of civilized life, are in the same condition, cannotbe controverted.”
“Taught from their infancy that beauty is woman's sceptre, the mind shapes itself to the body, and, roaming round its gilt cage, only seeks to adorn its prison. Men have various employments and pursuits which engage their attention, and give a character to the opening mind; but women, confined to one, and having their thoughts constantly directed to the most insignificant part of themselves, seldom extend their views beyond the triumph of the hour.”
“In the education of women, the cultivation of the understanding is always subordinate to the acquirement of some corporeal accomplishment.”
Source: Vindication of the Rights of Women
“... we never do any thing well, unless we love it for its own sake.”
Source: A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
“...trifling employments have rendered woman a trifler.”
Source: The Vindications: The Rights of Men and The Rights of Woman
“The conduct of an accountable being must be regulated by the operations of its own reason.”
Source: A vindication of the rights of woman: with strictures on political and moral subjects
“...I scarcely am able to govern my muscles, when I see a man start with eager, and serious solicitude, to lift a handkerchief, orshut a door, when the lady could have done it herself, had she only moved a pace or two.”
Source: A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: Abridged with Related Texts
“... wealth and female softness equally tend to debase mankind!”
Source: A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: Abridged with Related Texts
“To improve both sexes they ought, not only in private families, but in public schools, to be educated together. If marriage be the cement of society, mankind should all be educated after the same model, or the intercourse of the sexes will never deserve the name of fellowship.”
Source: A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: Abridged with Related Texts
“At school boys become gluttons and slovens, and, instead of cultivating domestic affections, very early rush into the libertinism which destroys the constitution before it is formed; hardening the heart as it weakens the understanding.”
Source: A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
“Hereditary property sophisticates the mind, and the unfortunate victims to it ... swathed from their birth, seldom exert the locomotive faculty of body or mind; and, thus viewing every thing through one medium, and that a false one, they are unable to discern in what true merit and happiness consist.”
Source: A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
“... the whole tenour of female education ... tends to render the best disposed romantic and inconstant; and the remainder vain and mean.”
Source: The Vindications: The Rights of Men and The Rights of Woman
“Good habits, imperceptibly fixed, are far preferable to the precepts of reason.”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Mary Wollstonecraft (Illustrated)
“The appetites will rule if the mind is vacant.”
Source: A vindication of the rights of woman: an authoritative text, backgrounds, the Wollstonecraft debate, criticism
“I must be allowed to add some explanatory remarks to bring the subject home to reason-to that sluggish reason, which supinely takes opinions on trust, and obstinately supports them to spare itself the labour of thinking.”
Source: A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
“Some women govern their husbands without degrading themselves, because intellect will always govern.”
“The mind will ever be unstable that has only prejudices to rest on.”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Mary Wollstonecraft (Illustrated)
“I begin to love this little creature, and to anticipate his birth as a fresh twist to a knot which I do not wish to untie. Men are spoilt by frankness, I believe, yet I must tell you that I love you better than I supposed I did, when I promised to love you forever....I feel it thrilling through my frame, giving and promising pleasure.”
Source: The collected letters of Mary Wollstonecraft
“Taught from infancy that beauty is woman's sceptre, the mind shapes itself to the body, and roaming round its gilt cage, only seeks to adorn its prison.”
“Strengthen the female mind by enlarging it, and there will be an end to blind obedience.”
“If women be educated for dependence; that is, to act according to the will of another fallible being, and submit, right or wrong, to power, where are we to stop?”
“Make women rational creatures, and free citizens, and they will quickly become good wives; - that is, if men do not neglect the duties of husbands and fathers.”
Source: A vindication of the rights of woman: with strictures on political and moral subjects
“Women are systematically degraded by receiving the trivial attentions which men think it manly to pay to the sex, when, in fact, men are insultingly supporting their own superiority.”
“Virtue can only flourish among equals.”
“The being cannot be termed rational or virtuous, who obeys any authority, but that of reason.”
Source: A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
“It is time to effect a revolution in female manners - time to restore to them their lost dignity. It is time to separate unchangeable morals from local manners.”
Source: A Vindication of the Rights of Men; A Vindication of the Rights of Woman; An Historical and Moral View of the French Revolution
“If the abstract rights of man will bear discussion and explanation, those of women, by a parity of reasoning, will not shrink from the same test.”
Source: A Vindication of the Rights of Women & a Vindication of the Rights of Men
