Top 144 Quotes & Sayings by Mary Wollstonecraft

Women are degraded by the propensity to enjoy the present moment, and, at last, despise the freedom which they have not sufficient virtue to struggle to attain.

Taught from 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.

Virtue can only flourish among equals.

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

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.

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

Make women rational creatures, and free citizens, and they will quickly become good wives; - that is, if men do not neglect the duties of husbands and fathers.

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

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.

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

It appears to me impossible that I should cease to exist, or that this active, restless spirit, equally alive to joy and sorrow, should be only organized dust.

Independence I have long considered as the grand blessing of life, the basis of every virtue; and independence I will ever secure by contracting my wants, though I were to live on a barren heath.

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.

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

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.

In fact, it is a farce to call any being virtuous whose virtues do not result from the exercise of its own reason.

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

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

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

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

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

I love my man as my fellow; but his scepter, real, or usurped, extends not to me, unless the reason of an individual demands my homage; and even then the submission is to reason, and not to man.

The beginning is always today.

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.

Learn from me, if not by my precepts, then by my example, how dangerous is the pursuit of knowledge and how much happier is that man who believes his native town to be the world than he who aspires to be greater than his nature will allow.

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

Women are systematically degraded by receiving the trivial attentions which men think it manly to pay to the sex, when, in fact, men are insultingly supporting their own superiority.

No man chooses evil because it is evil; he only mistakes it for happiness, the good he seeks.

Slavery to monarchs and ministers, which the world will be long freeing itself from, and whose deadly grasp stops the progress of the human mind, is not yet abolished.

If women be educated for dependence; that is, to act according to the will of another fallible being, and submit, right or wrong, to power, where are we to stop?

Women have seldom sufficient employment to silence their feelings; a round of little cares, or vain pursuits frittering away all strength of mind and organs, they become naturally only objects of sense.

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

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

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

Man preys on man; and you mourn for the idle tapestry that decorated a gothic pillar, and the dronish bell that summoned the fat priest to prayer. You mourn for the empty pageant of a name, when slavery flaps her wing, ... Why is our fancy to be appalled by terrific perspectives of a hell beyond the grave? - Hell stalks abroad; - the lash resounds on the slave's naked sides; and the sick wretch, who can no longer earn the sour bread of unremitting labour, steals to a ditch to bid the world a long good night.

We cannot, without depraving our minds, endeavour to please a lover or husband, but in proportion as he pleases us.

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

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

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.

To improve both sexes they ought, not only in private families, but in public schools, to be educated together. If marriage be the cement of society, mankind should all be educated after the same model, or the intercourse of the sexes will never deserve the name of fellowship.

Friendship is a serious affection; the most sublime of all affections, because it is founded on principle, and cemented by time. The very reverse may be said of love. In a great degree, love and friendship cannot subsist in the same bosom; even when inspired by different objects they weaken or destroy each other, and for the same object can only be felt in succession. The vain fears and fond jealousies, the winds which fan the flame of love, when judiciously or artfully tempered, are both incompatible with the tender confidence and sincere respect of friendship.

[I]f we revert to history, we shall find that the women who have distinguished themselves have neither been the most beautiful nor the most gentle of their sex.

When we feel deeply, we reason profoundly.

My own sex, I hope, will excuse me, if I treat them like rational creatures, instead of flattering their fascinating graces, and viewing them as if they were in a state of perpetual childhood, unable to stand alone.

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

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

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

To be a good mother, a woman must have sense, and that independence of mind which few women possess who are taught to depend entirely on their husbands. Meek wives are, in general, foolish mothers; wanting their children to love them best, and take their part, in secret, against the father, who is held up as a scarecrow.

How frequently has melancholy and even misanthropy taken possession of me, when the world has disgusted me, and friends have proven unkind. I have then considered myself as a particle broken off from the grand mass of mankind.

But women are very differently situated with respect to eachother - for they are all rivals (...) Is it then surprising that when the sole ambition of woman centres in beauty, and interest gives vanity additional force, perpetual rivalships should ensue? They are all running the same race, and would rise above the virtue of morals, if they did not view each other with a suspicious and even envious eye.

We reason deeply, when we forcibly feel.

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

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

No man chooses evil because it's evil. He only mistakes it for happiness, the good he seeks.

The two sexes mutually corrupt and improve each other.

People thinking for themselves have more energy in their voice, than any government, which it is possible for human wisdom to invent; and every government not aware of this sacred truth will, at some period, be suddenly overturned.

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

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

The appetites will rule if the mind is vacant.

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