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Mary Wollstonecraft

Mary Wollstonecraft Quotes

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Famous Mary Wollstonecraft Quotes

“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.”

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Author:Mary Wollstonecraft
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“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.”

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Book:Wollstonecraft: A Vindication of the Rights of Men and a Vindication of the Rights of Woman and Hints
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“...men endeavor to sink us still lower, merely to render us alluring objects for a moment; and women, intoxicated by the adoration which men, under the influence of their senses, pay them, do not seek to obtain a durable interest in their hearts, or to become the friends of the fellow creatures who find amusement in their society.”

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Book:A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
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“Friendship and domestic happiness are continually praised; yet how little is there of either in the world, because it requires more cultivation of mind to keep awake affection, even in our own hearts, than the common run of people suppose.”

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Book:Letters Written during a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark
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“It appears to me impossible that I should cease to exist, or that this active, restless spirit, equally alive to joy and sorrow, should only be organised dust - ready to fly abroad the moment the spring snaps, or the spark goes out, which kept it together. Surely something resides in this heart that is not perishable - and life is more than a dream.”

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Book:Letters from Scandinavia
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“I earnestly wish to point out in what true dignity and human happiness consists. I wish to persuade women to endeavor to acquire strength, both of mind and body, and to convince them that the soft phrases, susceptibility of heart, delicacy of sentiment, and refinement of taste, are almost synonymous with epithets of weakness, and that those beings are only the objects of pity, and that kind of love which has been termed its sister, will soon become objects of contempt.”

MindHumansHeartKindHas BeensBodyWishObjectsTasteWeaknessDignityPityPhrasesAcquireConvinceSentimentsEndeavorContemptWomens RightsNormMind And BodyRefinementDelicacyKinds Of LoveHuman HappinessVindicationEpithetSusceptibility
Book:Mary, A Fiction and The Wrongs of Woman, or Maria
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“The highest branch of solitary amusement is reading; but even in the choice of books the fancy is first employed; for in reading, the heart is touched, till its feelings are examined by the understanding, and the ripening of reason regulate the imagination. This is the work of years, and the most important of all employments.”

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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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“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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