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

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

Let us eat, drink, and love for tomorrow we die, would be in fact the language of reason, the morality of life; and who but a fool would part with a reality for a fleeting shadow?

Only by the jostlings of equality can we form a just opinion of ourselves.

Men, indeed, appear to me to act in a very unphilosophical manner when they try to secure the good conduct of women by attempting to keep them always in a state of childhood.

Like the flowers that are planted in too rich a soil, strength and usefulness are sacrificed to beauty.

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.

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

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

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

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.

You can’t keep hurting a person and expect them to keep loving you.

They expect me to feel like spring but my heart is full of April showers.

People’s expectations cut dreamer’s wings.

Expectations kills more people than the best gun in the world.

I had no dreams of such economic success. You should have fun and not be so weighed down by expectations.

Expectations keep us in a victim role. They keep us blaming. They keep us looking outward. They keep us stuck.  

No truths hidden, no lies fed. No expectations, no tears shed.

Attachment gives birth to expectations.