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Mary Wollstonecraft

Mary Wollstonecraft Quotes

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Mary Wollstonecraft, born on April 27, 1759, and died on September 10, 1797, was an influential English writer, philosopher, and feminist. She is best known for her work 'A Vindication of the Rights of Woman', which challenged the gender roles and social structures of her time.

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Famous Mary Wollstonecraft Quotes

“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?”

God Truth Women Education Knowledge

Book:A Vindication of the Rights of Woman

Source: A Vindication of the Rights of Woman

“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.”

Education Feminism Womanhood Opeession

Book:Vindication Of The Rights Of Woman (Vintage Feminism Short Edition), A

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.”

Education Virtue Feminism Ethics

Book:Thoughts on the Education of Daughters (1787) by Mary Wollstonecraft

Source: Thoughts on the Education of Daughters (1787) by Mary Wollstonecraft

“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.”

Heart Body Form Individual Understanding Perfect Education Virtue Habit Exercise Independent

Book:Wollstonecraft: A Vindication of the Rights of Men and a Vindication of the Rights of Woman and Hints

Source: Wollstonecraft: A Vindication of the Rights of Men and a Vindication of the Rights of Woman and Hints

“In the education of women, the cultivation of the understanding is always subordinate to the acquirement of some corporeal accomplishment.”

Understanding Education Accomplishment Subordinates Cultivation Vindication

Book:Vindication of the Rights of Women

Source: Vindication of the Rights of Women

“... the whole tenour of female education ... tends to render the best disposed romantic and inconstant; and the remainder vain and mean.”

Mean Whole Education Romantic Female Vain Female Education

Book:The Vindications: The Rights of Men and The Rights of Woman

Source: The Vindications: The Rights of Men and The Rights of Woman

“Only that education deserves emphatically to be termed cultivation of the mind which teaches young people how to begin to think.”

People Thinking Mind Young Justice Education Teach Diversity Deserve Social Justice Educational Literacy Cultivation

Book:A Vindication of the Rights of Woman

Source: A Vindication of the Rights of Woman

“Men and women must be educated, in a great degree, by the opinions and manners of the society they live in.”

Men Education Opinion Degrees Men And Women Educated Manners Vindication

Book:A vindication of the rights of woman: with strictures on political and moral subjects

Source: A vindication of the rights of woman: with strictures on political and moral subjects

“I think schools, as they are now regulated, the hot-beds of vice and folly, and the knowledge of human nature supposedly attained there, merely cunning selfishness.”

Thinking Humans School Education Human Nature Bed Hot Vices Selfishness Folly Cunning

Book:A Vindication of the Rights of Women & a Vindication of the Rights of Men

Source: A Vindication of the Rights of Women & a Vindication of the Rights of Men