I love 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.
MARY WOLLSTONECRAFTThe power of generalizing ideas, of drawing comprehensive conclusions from individual observations, is the only acquirement, for an immortal being, that really deserves the name of knowledge.
More Mary Wollstonecraft Quotes
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I never wanted but your heart-that gone, you have nothing more to give.
MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT -
Parental affection is, perhaps, the blindest modification of perverse self-love
MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT -
Let their faculties have room to unfold, and their virtues to gain strength, and then determine where the whole sex must stand in the intellectual scale.
MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT -
I wish to show that elegance is inferior to virtue, that the first object of laudable ambition is to obtain a character as a human being, regardless of the distinction of sex.
MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT -
Rousseau exerts himself to prove that all was right originally: a crowd of authors that all is now right: and I, that all will be right.
MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT -
After attacking the sacred majesty of Kings, I shall scarcely excite surprise by adding my firm persuasion that every profession, in which great subordination of rank constitutes its power, is highly injurious to morality.
MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT -
Men and women must be educated, in a great degree, by the opinions and manners of the society they live in.
MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT -
Into this error men have, probably, been led by viewing education in a false light; not considering it as the first step to form a being advancing gradually towards perfection; but only as a preparation for life.
MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT -
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.
MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT -
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?
MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT -
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.
MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT -
Strengthen the female mind by enlarging it, and there will be an end to blind obedience.
MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT -
Nature in everything demands respect, and those who violate her laws seldom violate them with impunity.
MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT -
She would stand and behold the waves rolling, and think of the voice that could still the tumultuous deep.
MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT -
If then women are not a swarm of ephemeron triflers, why should they be kept in ignorance under the specious name of innocence?
MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT -
Errors are often useful; but it is commonly to remedy other errors.
MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT -
True sensibility, the sensibility which is the auxiliary of virtue, and the soul of genius, is in society so occupied with the feelings of others, as scarcely to regard its own sensations.
MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT -
Taxes on the very necessaries of life, enable an endless tribe of idle princes and princesses to pass with stupid pomp before a gaping crowd, who almost worship the very parade which costs them so dear.
MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT -
Either nature has made a great difference between man and man, or that the world is not yet anywhere near to being fully civilized.
MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT -
The beginning is always today.
MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT -
The greater number of people take their opinions on trust, to avoid the trouble of exercising their own minds, and these indolent beings naturally adhere to the letter, rather than the spirit of a law, divine or human.
MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT -
Not on the score of modesty, but decency; for the care which some modest women take, making at the same time a display of that care, not to let their legs be seen, is as childish as immodest.
MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT -
Virtue flies from a house divided against itself—and a whole legion of devils take up their residence there.
MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT -
Women are systematically degraded by receiving the trivial attentions which men think it manly to pay to their sex, when, in fact, men are insultingly supporting their own superiority.
MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT -
Some women govern their husbands without degrading themselves, because intellect will always govern.
MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT -
But what a weak barrier is truth when it stands in the way of an hypothesis!
MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT