How can a rational being be ennobled by any thing that is not obtained by its own exertions?
MARY WOLLSTONECRAFTI do not wish them women to have power over men; but over themselves.
More Mary Wollstonecraft Quotes
-
-
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 -
How much more respectable is the woman who earns her own bread by fulfilling any duty, than the most accomplished beauty!
MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT -
It is justice, not charity, that is wanting in the world!
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 -
It is not necessary for me always to premise, that I speak of the condition of the whole sex, leaving exceptions out of the question.
MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT -
My dreams were all my own; I accounted for them to nobody; they were my refuge when annoyed – my dearest pleasure when free.
MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT -
I do not wish them women to have power over men; but over themselves.
MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT -
Soft phrases, susceptibility of heart, delicacy of sentiment, and refinement of taste are almost synonymous with the epithets of weakness, I wish to show that elegance is inferior to virtue.
MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT -
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.
MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT -
Only by the jostlings of equality can we form a just opinion of ourselves.
MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT -
Pope’s summary of their character to be just, that every woman is at heart a rake.
MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT -
It is vain to expect virtue from women till they are in some degree independent of men.
MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT -
Modesty, temperance, and self-denial, are the sober offspring of reason.
MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT -
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.
MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT -
Simplicity and sincerity generally go hand in hand, as both proceed from a love of truth.
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 -
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 -
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.
MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT -
Nature in everything demands respect, and those who violate her laws seldom violate them with impunity.
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 -
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 -
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 -
Without the aid of the imagination all the pleasures of the senses must sink into grossness.
MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT -
The beginning is always today.
MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT -
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.
MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT -
They who pass their whole lives in working for their daily bread, have no ideas beyond their business or their interest, and all their understanding seems to lie in their fingers ends.
MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT