“And if then women do not resign the arbitrary power of beauty – they will prove that they have less mind than man.”

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.

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

She would stand and behold the waves rolling, and think of the voice that could still the tumultuous deep.

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

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.

Solitude and reflection are necessary to give to wishes the force of passions.

Modesty, temperance, and self-denial, are the sober offspring of reason.

How much more respectable is the woman who earns her own bread by fulfilling any duty, than the most accomplished beauty!

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.

It may be impossible to convince women that the illegitimate power which they obtain by degrading themselves is a curse.

Pope’s summary of their character to be just, that every woman is at heart a rake.

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.

As sound politics diffuse liberty, mankind, including woman, will become more wise and virtuous.

Men who are inferior to their fellow men, are always most anxious to establish their superiority over women.

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.

If then women are not a swarm of ephemeron triflers, why should they be kept in ignorance under the specious name of innocence?

Science is a beautiful gift to humanity, we should not distort it. Science does not differentiate between multiple races.

Love is something more stern and splendid than mere kindness.

The best colour in the whole world is the one that looks good on you.

The Holy Spirit loves to shape unity from the most beautiful and harmonious diversity.

The most beautiful world is always entered through imagination.

I would love to do a movie naked; it would be beautiful. No one dares make that kind of film today. They did it in the 1930s in an arty way, so why not now?

The prime function of the children’s book writer is to write a book that is so absorbing, exciting, funny, fast and beautiful that the child will fall in love with it.

I knew I belonged to the public and to the world, not because I was talented or even beautiful, but because I had never belonged to anything or anyone else.