Mary Wollstonecraft quotes: wise famous quotes, sayings and quotations by Mary Wollstonecraft

Mary Wollstonecraft Famous Quotes & Sayings

Discover top inspirational quotes from Mary Wollstonecraft on Wise Famous Quotes.

Women do not want power over men, they want power over themselves.

Nay the honour of the woman is not made even to depend on her will.

I do earnestly wish to see the distinction of sex confounded in society, unless where love animates the behaviour.

I never wanted but your heart
that gone, you have nothing more to give.

The appetites will rule if the mind is vacant.

A modest man is steady, an humble man timid, and a vain one presumptuous.

The more equality there is established among men, the more virtue and happiness will reign in society.

We never do any thing well, unless we love it for its own sake.

The two sexes mutually corrupt and improve each other.

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.

Life cannot be seen by an unmoved spectator.

Every glance afforded colouring for the picture she was delineating on her heart.

When man, governed by reasonable laws, enjoys his natural freedom, let him despise woman, if she do not share it with him.

Good habits, imperceptibly fixed, are far preferable to the precepts of reason.

She was created to be the toy of man, his rattle, and it must jingle in his ears whenever, dismissing reason, he chooses to be amused.

Surely something resides in this heart that is not perishable - and life is more than a dream.

The graceful ivy, clasping the oak that supported it, would form a whole in which strength and beauty would be equally conspicuous.

We reason deeply, when we forcibly feel.

Those who are bold enough to advance before the age they live in ... must learn to brave censure.

The endeavor to keep alive any hoary establishment beyond its natural date is often pernicious and always useless.

Why is our fancy to be appalled by terrific perspectives of a hell beyond the grave?

But let me now stop; I may be a little partial, and view every thing with the jaundiced eye of melancholy - for I am sad - and have cause.

Strengthen the female mind by enlarging it, and there will be an end to blind obedience.

They are the men of fancy, the favourites of the sex, who outwardly respect, and inwardly despise the weak creatures whom they thus sport with.

Situation seems to be the mould in which men's characters are formed.

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

The same energy of character which renders a man a daring villain would have rendered him useful in society, had that society been well organized.

It is vain to expect virtue from women till they are in some degree independent of men.

When poverty is more disgraceful than even vice, is not morality cut to the quick?

Let woman share the rights and she will emulate the virtues of man; for she must grow more perfect when emancipated ...

Either nature has made a great difference between man and man, or that the world is not yet anywhere near to being fully civilized.

Happy would it be for women, if they were only flattered by the men who loved them; I mean, who love the individual, not the sex.

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.

The divine right of husbands, like the divine right of kings, may, it is hoped, in this enlightened age, be contested without danger.

The mind will ever be unstable that has only prejudices to rest on.

Judicious books enlarge the mind and improve the heart ...

Considering the length of time that women have been dependent, is it surprising that some of them hug their chains, and fawn like the spaniel?

When a man seduces a woman, it should, I think, be termed a left-handed marriage.

How can a rational being be ennobled by any thing that is not obtained by its own exertions?

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

Friendship is a serious affection; the most sublime of all affections, because it is founded on principle, and cemented by time.

I think I love most people best when they are in adversity; for pity is one of my prevailing passions.

Wealth and female softness equally tend to debase mankind!

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

Nothing, I am sure, calls forth the faculties so much as the being obliged to struggle with the world.

The being cannot be termed rational or virtuous, who obeys any authority, but that of reason.

When any prevailing prejudice is attacked, the wise will consider, and leave the narrow-minded to rail with thoughtless vehemence at innovation.

At boarding schools of every description, the relaxation of the junior boys is mischief; and of the senior, vice.

My dreams were all my own; I accounted for them to nobody; they were my refuge when annoyed - my dearest pleasure when free.

Society can only be happy and free in proportion as it is virtuous.

It is the preservation of the species, not of individuals, which appears to be the design of Deity throughout the whole of nature.

In this metropolis a number of lurking leeches infamously gain subsistence by practicing on the credulity of women.

The conduct of an accountable being must be regulated by the operations of its own reason ...

I do not wish them [women] to have power over men; but over themselves.

Some women govern their husbands without degrading themselves, because intellect will always govern.

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

When we feel deeply, we reason profoundly.

It is justice, not charity, that is wanting in the world.

Without the aid of the imagination all the pleasures of the senses must sink into grossness.

Children, I grant, should be innocent; but when the epithet is applied to men, or women, it is but a civil term for weakness.

Women ought to have representatives, instead of being arbitrarily governed without any direct share allowed them in the deliberations of government.

My husband - my king.

Men, in general, seem to employ their reason to justify prejudices ... rather than to root them out.

It is far better to be often deceived than never to trust; to be disappointed in love, than never to love.

[...] and if then women do not resign the arbitrary power of beauty - they will prove that they have less mind than man.

Trifling employments have rendered woman a trifler.

Thus do we wish as we float down the stream of life, whilst chance does more to gratify our desire for knowledge than our best-laid plans.

Simplicity and sincerity generally go hand in hand, as both proceed from a love of truth.

I begin to love this creature, and to anticipate her birth as a fresh twist to a knot, which I do not wish to untie.

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.

True happiness must arise from well-regulated affections, and an affection includes a duty.

They may be convenient slaves, but slavery will have its constant effect, degrading the master and the abject dependent.

An air of fashion, which is but a badge of slavery ... proves that the soul has not a strong individual character.

But what a weak barrier is truth when it stands in the way of an hypothesis!

As a sex, women are habitually indolent; and every thing tends to make them so.

Modesty is the graceful, calm virtue of maturity; bashfulness the charm of vivacious youth.

Every political good carried to the extreme must be productive of evil.

Virtue can only flourish among equals.