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Mary Wollstonecraft

Mary Wollstonecraft Quotes

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Famous Mary Wollstonecraft Quotes

“Let not men then in the pride of power, use the same arguments that tyrannic kings and venal ministers have used, and fallaciously assert that women ought to be subjected because she has always been so.... 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.”

MenUseUsedLostWomenMoralEffectsRevolutionPrideOughtKingsFemaleArgumentDignityLocalsMannersMinistersWomens RightsUnchangeable
Author:Mary Wollstonecraft
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“The conduct and manners of women, in fact, evidently prove that their minds are not in a healthy state; for, like the flowers which are planted in too rich a soil, strenght state; usefulness are sacrificed to beauty; and the flaunting leaves, after having pleased a fastidious eye, fade, disregarded on the stalk, long before the season when they ought to have arrived at maturity.”

MindLongStatesFactsEyeRichFlowerOughtHealthyProveSeasonsMannersMaturitySoilFadesUsefulnessStalkingVindicationDisregardedStrenghtFastidiousFlaunting
Book:The Vindications: The Rights of Men and The Rights of Woman
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“Love from its very nature must be transitory. To seek for a secret that would render it constant would be as wild a search as for the philosopher’s stone or the grand panacea: and the discovery would be equally useless, or rather pernicious to mankind. The most holy band of society is friendship.”

Would BeSecretMankindHolyBandDiscoveryStonesConstantPhilosopherUselessPerniciousTransitoryPanacea
Book:A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
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“Women becoming, consequently, weakerthan they ought to behave not sufficient strength to discharge the first duty of a mother; and sacrificing to lasciviousness the parental affectioneither destroy the embryo in the womb, or cast if off when born. Nature in every thing demands respect, and those who violate her laws seldom violate them with impunity.”

IfsFirstsLawMotherBornSacrificeDutyOughtBecomingDemandCastsBehaveSufficientWombParentalImpunityDischargeEmbryos
Author:Mary Wollstonecraft
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“Perhaps the seeds of false-refinement, immorality, and vanity, have ever been shed by the great. Weak, artificial beings, raised above the common wants and defections of their race, in a premature and unnatural manner, undermine the very foundation of virtue, and spread corruption through the whole mass of society!”

WantWholeWomenLeadershipCommonRaceVirtueMassWeakFoundationRaisedCorruptionSpreadSeedsVanityArtificialShedUnnaturalRefinementImmoralityPremature
Author:Mary Wollstonecraft
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“Let us, my dear contemporaries, arise above such narrow prejudices. If wisdom be desirable on its own account, if virtue, to deserve the name, must be founded on knowledge, let us endeavour to strengthen our minds by reflection till our heads become a balance for our hearts.”

IfsMindHeartNamesVirtueBalanceReflectionDeserveAccountsPrejudiceDearAriseDesirableRise AboveEndeavour
Book:A Vindication of the Rights of Men; A Vindication of the Rights of Woman; An Historical and Moral View of the French Revolution
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“Thinking it selfish to dwell on her own sufferings, when in the midst of wretches, who had not only lost all that endears life, but their very selves, her imagination was occupied with melancholy earnestness to trace the mazes of misery, through which so many wretches must have passed to this gloomy receptacle of disjointed souls, to the grand source of human corruption.”

ThinkingHumansSoulSelfSufferingLostImaginationSourceMiseryCorruptionSelfishMidstMelancholyGloomyMazesEarnestness
Book:Maria, or The Wrongs of Woman
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“Executions, far from being useful examples to the survivors, have, I am persuaded, a quite contrary effect, by hardening the heart they ought to terrify. Besides, the fear of an ignominious death, I believe, never deterred anyone from the commission of a crime, because in committing it the mind is roused to activity about present circumstances.”

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Author:Mary Wollstonecraft
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