“Love, considered as an animal appetite, cannot long feed on itself without expiring.”
Source: A Vindication of the Rights of Woman Annotated
“One class presses on another; for all are aiming to procure respect on account of their property: and property, once gained, will procure the respect due only to talents and virtue. Men neglect the duties incumbent on man, yet are treated like demi-gods; religion is also separated from morality by a ceremonial veil, yet men wonder that the world is almost, literally speaking, a den of sharpers or oppressors.”
Source: A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
“I do not wish them [women] to have power over men; but over themselves.”
Source: A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
“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.”
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 - and make them, as a part of the human species, labour by reforming themselves to reform the world. It is time to separate unchangeable morals from local manners.”
Source: A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
“Indeed the word masculine is only a bugbear: there is little reason to fear that women will acquire too much courage or fortitude; for their apparent inferiority with respect to bodily strength, must render them, in some degree, dependent on men in the various relations of life; but why should it be increased by prejudices that give a sex to virtue, and confound simple truths with sensual reveries?”
Source: A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
“Women are, in fact, so much degraded by mistaken notions of female excellence, that I do not mean to add a paradox when I assert, that this artificial weakness produces a propensity to tyrannize, and gives birth to cunning, the natural opponent of strength, which leads them to play off those contemptible infantile airs that undermine esteem even whilst they excite desire.”
Source: A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
“I have reverentially lifted up my eyes to Him who liveth for ever and ever, and said, O my Father, hast Thou by the very constitution of her nature forbid Thy child to seek Thee in the fair forms of truth? And, can her soul be sullied by the knowledge that awfully calls her to Thee?”
Source: A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
“I allow that it is easier to touch the body of a saint, or to be magnetised, than to restrain our appetites or govern our passions; but health of body or mind can only be recovered by these means, or we make the Supreme Judge partial and revengeful.
Is he a man that he should change, or punish out of resentment?
He - the common father, wounds but to heal, says reason, and our irregularities producing certain consequences, we are forcibly shewn the nature of vice; that thus learning to know good from evil, by experience, we may hate one and love the other, in proportion to the wisdom which we attain. The poison contains the antidote; and we either reform our evil habits and cease to sin against our own bodies, to use the forcible language of scripture, or a premature death, the punishment of sin, snaps the thread of life.”
Source: A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
“For some time she had observed, that she was not treated with the same respect as formerly; her favors were forgotten when no more were expected.”
Source: Mary: A Fiction
“Solitude and reflection are necessary to give to wishes the force of passions.”
Source: A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
“The being who patiently endures injustice, and silently bears insults, will soon become unjust, or unable to discern right from wrong.”
“Taught from infancy that beauty is woman's scepter, the mind shapes itself to the body, and, roaming round its gilt cage, only seeks to adorn its prison”
“Still the men stand up for the dignity of man, by oppressing the women.”
Source: Letters Written During A Short Residence In Sweden, Norway And Denmark
“I presume that RATIONAL men will excuse me for endeavouring to persuade them to become more masculine and respectable.”
Source: A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
“The little respect paid to chastity in the male world is, I am persuaded, the grand source of many of the physical and moral evils that torment mankind, as well as of the vices and follies that degrade and destroy women; yet, at school, boys infallibly lose that decent bashfulness, which might have ripened into modesty at home.”
Source: A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
“...let them not expect to be valued when their beauty fades, for it is the fate of the fairest flowers to be admired and pulled to pieces by the careless hand that plucked them.”
Source: A Vindication of the Rights of Woman & A Vindication of the Rights of Men: And A Vindication of the Rights of Men
“The preposterous distinctions of rank, which render civilization a curse, by dividing the world between voluptuous tyrants, and cunning envious dependents, corrupt, almost equally, every class of people, because respectability is not attached to the discharge of the relative duties of life, but to the station, and when the duties are not fulfilled the affections cannot gain sufficient strength to fortify the virtue of which they are the natural reward. Still there are some loop-holes out of which a man may creep, and dare to think and act for himself; but for a woman it is an herculean task, because she has difficulties peculiar to her sex to overcome, which require almost super-human powers.”
Source: A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
“England and America owe their liberty to commerce, which created a new species of power to undermine the feudal system. But let them beware of the consequences: the tyranny of wealth is still more galling and debasing than that of rank.”
Source: Letters Written During A Short Residence In Sweden, Norway And Denmark
“Few, I believe, have had much affection for mankind, who did not first love their parents, their brothers, sisters, and even the domestic brutes, whom they first played with.”
Source: A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
“The mind, too, should be soothed . . . whenever it sinks, soothing is, better than reasoning. The slackened nerves are not to be braced by words. When a mind is worried by care, or oppressed by sorrow, it cannot in a moment grow tranquil, and attend to the voice of reason.”
Source: Thoughts on the Education of Daughters
“Forbearance and liberality of sentiment are the virtues of maturity.”
Source: Thoughts on the Education of Daughters
“Let us eat, drink, and love for tomorrow we die, would be in fact the language of reason, the morality of life; and who but a fool would part with a reality for a fleeting shadow?”
Source: A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
“I have sighed when obliged to confess that either Nature has made a great difference between man and man, or that the civilization which has hitherto taken place in the world has been very partial.”
Source: A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
“Would men but generously snap our chains, and be content with rational fellowship instead of slavish obedience, they would find us more observant daughters, more affectionate sisters, more faithful wives, more reasonable mothers—in a word, better citizens”
Source: A Vindication of the Rights of Woman & A Vindication of the Rights of Men: And A Vindication of the Rights of Men
“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 endeavour to keep woman in the dark, because the former only want slaves, and the latter a plaything.”
Source: Vindication Of The Rights Of Woman (Vintage Feminism Short Edition), A
“Ridicule has been, with some people, the boasted test of truth—if so, our sex ought to make wonderful improvements; but I am apt to think, they often extern this talent till they lose all perception of it themselves. Affectation, and not ignorance, is the fair game for ridicule; and even affectation some good-natured persons will spare. We should never give pain without a design to amend.”
Source: Thoughts on the Education of Daughters (1787) by Mary Wollstonecraft
“To have this uncertain world some stay, which cannot be undermined, is of the utmost consequence; and this stay it is, which gives that dignity to the manners, which shews that a person does not depend on mere human applause for comfort and satisfaction.”
Source: Thoughts on the Education of Daughters
“To have in this uncertain world some stay, which cannot be undermined, is of the utmost consequence; and this stay it is, which gives that dignity to the manners, which shows that a person does not depend on mere human applause for comfort and satisfaction.”
Source: Thoughts on the Education of Daughters
“Simplicity of Dress, and unaffected manners, should go together. They demand respect, and will be admired by people of taste, even when love is out of the question.”
Source: Thoughts on the Education of Daughters
“Was not the world a vast prison, and women born slaves?”
Source: Maria: or, The Wrongs of Woman
“For myself, never encouraging any of the advances that were made to me, my lovers dropped off like the untimely shoots of spring. I did not even coquet with them; because I found, on examining myself, I could not coquet with a man without loving him a little; and I perceived that I should not be able to stop at the line of what are termed innocent freedoms, did I suffer any.”
Source: Maria: or, The Wrongs of Woman
“Si las mujeres no son una manada de seres frívolos y efímeros, ¿por qué se las debería mantener en la ignorancia bajo el nombre engañoso de la inocencia? Los hombres se quejan, y con razón, de la insensatez y los caprichos de nuestro sexo, cuando no se burlan con agudeza de nuestras impulsivas pasiones y nuestros vicios serviles. He aquí lo que debería responder: ¡el efecto natural de la ignorancia! La mente que sólo descansa en prejuicios siempre será inestable y la corriente marchará con furia destructiva cuando no existan barreras que rompan su fuerza.”
Source: A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
“Women are told from their infancy, and taught by the example of their mothers, that a little knowlegde of human weakness, justly termed cunning, softness of temper; outward obedience, and a scrupulous attention to a puerile kind of proptiety, will obtain for them the protection of man; and should they be beautiful, every thing else is needless, for, at least, twenty years of their lives.”
“To marry for support is legal prostitution.”
Source: "A VINDICATION OF THE RIGHTS OF WOMAN (WITH STRICTURES ON POLITICAL AND MORAL SUBJECTS) "
“A woman neglected by her husband, or whose manners form a striking contrast with his, will always have men on the watch to soothe and flatter her. Besides, the forlorn state of a neglected woman, not destitute of personal charms, is particularly interesting, and rouses that species of pity, which is so near akin, it easily slides into love. A man of feeling thinks not of seducing, he is himself seduced by all the noblest emotions of his soul. He figures to himself all the sacrifices a woman of sensibility must make, and every situation in which his imagination places her, touches his heart, and fires his passions. Longing to take to his bosom the shorn lamb, and bid the drooping buds of hope revive, benevolence changes into passion: and should he then discover that he is beloved, honour binds him fast, though foreseeing that he may afterwards be obliged to pay severe damages to the man, who never appeared to value his wife’s society, till he found that there was a chance of his being indemnified for the loss of it.”
Source: Maria: or, The Wrongs of Woman
“When a man seduces a woman, it should, I think, be termed a left-handed marriage.”
“An air of fashion, which is but a badge of slavery ... proves that the soul has not a strong individual character.”
Source: A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: Abridged with Related Texts
“When any prevailing prejudice is attacked, the wise will consider, and leave the narrow-minded to rail with thoughtless vehemence at innovation.”
Source: A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
“The last man! Yes I may well describe that solitary being's feelings, feeling myself as the last relic of a beloved race, my companions extinct before me.”
“I am an unfortunate and deserted creature, I look around and I have no relation or friend upon earth. These amiable people to whom I go have never seen me and know little of me. I am full of fears, for if I fail there, I am an outcast in the world forever.”
Source: Frankenstein's Bride: Frankenstein Or the Modern Prometheus
“Some years ago, when the images which this world affords first opened upon me, when I felt the cheering warmth of summer and heard the rustling of the leaves and the warbling of the birds, and these were all to me, I should have wept to die; now it is my only consolation. Polluted by crimes and torn by the bitterest remorse, where can I find rest but in death?”
“You know I am not born to tread in the beaten track the peculiar bent of my nature pushes me on.”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Mary Wollstonecraft (Illustrated)
“I am a strange compound of weakness and resolution! However, if I must suffer, I will endeavour to suffer in silence. There is certainly a great defect in my mind my wayward heart creates its own misery Why I am made thus I cannot tell; and, till I can form some idea of the whole of my existence, I must be content to weep and dance like a child long for a toy, and be tired of it as soon as I get it.”
“I write in a hurry, because the little one, who has been sleeping a long time, begins to call for me. Poor thing! when I am sad, I lament that all my affections grow on me, till they become too strong for my peace, though they all afford me snatches of exquisite enjoyment.”
Source: Posthumous Works: of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
“We reason deeply, when we forcibly feel.”
Source: Letters Written during a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark
“Situation seems to be the mould in which men's characters are formed.”
Source: Letters Written in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark
“In this metropolis a number of lurking leeches infamously gain subsistence by practicing on the credulity of women.”
Source: A Vindication of the Rights of Women
“What, but the rapacity of the only men who exercised their reason, the priests, secured such vast property to the church, when a man gave his perishable substance to save himself from the dark torments of purgatory; and found it more convenient to indulge his depraved appetites, and pay an exorbitant price for absolution, than listen to the suggestions of reason, and work out his own salvation: in a word, was not the separation of religion from morality the work of the priests...?”
Source: The Vindications: The Rights of Men and The Rights of Woman
“Men neglect the duties incumbent on man, yet are treated like demi-gods; religion is also separated from morality by a ceremonial veil, yet men wonder that the world is almost, literally speaking, a den of sharpers or oppressors.”
Source: A Vindication of the Rights of Men; A Vindication of the Rights of Woman; An Historical and Moral View of the French Revolution
