Mary Wollstonecraft Quotes

Mary Wollstonecraft

Good habits, imperceptibly fixed, are far preferable to the precepts of reason.

Mary Wollstonecraft
(Original Stories from Real Life, 1788)
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Virtue can only flourish amongst equals.

Mary Wollstonecraft (A Vindication of the Rights of Men, 1790)

We reason deeply, when we forcibly feel.

Mary Wollstonecraft (Letters Written in Sweden, Norway and Denmark, 1796)

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

Mary Wollstonecraft (A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Chapter 4, 1792)

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

Mary Wollstonecraft (A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Chapter 5, 1792)

I do not wish women to have power over men; but over themselves.

Mary Wollstonecraft (A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Chapter 4, 1792)

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

Mary Wollstonecraft (The French Revolution, 1794)

Situation seems to be the mould in which men's characters are formed.

Mary Wollstonecraft (Letters Written in Sweden, Norway and Denmark, 1796)

A modest man is steady, an humble man timid, and a vain one presumptuous.

Mary Wollstonecraft (A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Chapter 7, 1792)

As a sex, women are habitually indolent; and everything tends to make them so.

Mary Wollstonecraft

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

Mary Wollstonecraft (Letters Written in Sweden, Norway and Denmark, 1796)

Modesty is the graceful, calm virtue of maturity; bashfulness the charm of vivacious youth.

Mary Wollstonecraft

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

Mary Wollstonecraft (A Vindication of the Rights of Men, 1790)

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

Mary Wollstonecraft (A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Chapter 13, 1792)

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

Mary Wollstonecraft (A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Chapter 3, 1792)

Nothing, I am sure, calls forth the faculties so much as the being obliged to struggle with the world.

Mary Wollstonecraft (Thoughts on the Education of Daughters, 1787)

You know I am not born to tread in the beaten track — the peculiar bent of my nature pushes me on.

Mary Wollstonecraft (Letter to Everina Wollstonecraft, 1787)

True politeness is a polish, not a varnish; and should rather be acquired by observation than admonition.

Mary Wollstonecraft (Original Stories from Real Life, 1788)

The endeavor to keep alive any hoary establishment beyond its natural date is often pernicious and always useless.

Mary Wollstonecraft (The French Revolution, 1794)

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

Mary Wollstonecraft (A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Chapter 4, 1792)

The same energy of character which renders a man a daring villain would have rendered him useful to society, had that society been well organized.

Mary Wollstonecraft (Letters Written in Sweden, Norway and Denmark, 1796)

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.

Mary Wollstonecraft (A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Chapter 3, 1792)

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?

Mary Wollstonecraft (A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Chapter 3, 1792)

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.

Mary Wollstonecraft (A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Chapter 12, 1792)

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.

Mary Wollstonecraft (A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Chapter 10, 1792)

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.

Mary Wollstonecraft (A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Chapter 2, 1792)

The 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.

Mary Wollstonecraft (A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Chapter 4, 1792)

Affection requires a firmer foundation than sympathy... I am persuaded that even the most spontaneous sensations are more under the direction of principle than weak people are willing to allow.

Mary Wollstonecraft (Letters Written in Sweden, Norway and Denmark, 1796)

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 (A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, 1792)

Women, sometimes boasting of their weakness, cunningly obtain power by playing on the weakness of men. And they may well glory in their illicit sway; for, like Turkish bashaws, they have more real power than their masters.

Mary Wollstonecraft

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Mary Wollstonecraft Biography

Born: April 27, 1759
Died: September 10, 1797

Mary Wollstonecraft was an British writer, philosopher and feminist activist. She is best known for her "Vindications" works and for her advocacy for equal rights for women in society.

Notable Works

Mary: A Fiction (1788)
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
(1792)
Letters Written in Sweden, Norway and Denmark (1796)
Maria: or, The Wrongs of Woman (1798)

Related Authors
Mary Shelley (Daughter)
William Godwin (Husband)