The being cannot be termed rational or virtuous, who obeys any authority, but that of reason.
—Mary Wollstonecraft
Topics: Authority
Children, I grant, should be innocent; but when the epithet is applied to men, or women, it is but a civil term for weakness.
—Mary Wollstonecraft
Topics: Innocence
Men, in general, seem to employ their reason to justify prejudices, which they have imbibed, they can scarcely trace how, rather than to root them out. The mind must be strong that resolutely forms its own principles; for a kind of intellectual cowardice prevails which makes many men shrink from the task, or only do it by halves.
—Mary Wollstonecraft
Topics: Prejudice
No man chooses evil because it is evil; he only mistakes it for happiness, the good he seeks.
—Mary Wollstonecraft
Topics: Evil
If the abstract rights of man will bear discussion and explanation, those of women, by a parity of reasoning, will not shrink from the same test: though a different opinion prevails in this country.
—Mary Wollstonecraft
Topics: Explanation, Women, Feminism
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
Topics: Independence
True happiness must arise from well-regulated affections, and an affection includes a duty.
—Mary Wollstonecraft
Topics: Happiness
Women are told from their infancy, and taught by the example of their mothers, that a little knowledge of human weakness, justly termed cunning, softness of temper, outward obedience and a scrupulous attention to a puerile kind of propriety, will obtain for them the protection of man.
—Mary Wollstonecraft
Topics: Men, Men & Women, Women
It is justice, not charity, that is wanting in the world.
—Mary Wollstonecraft
Topics: Charity
Standing armies can never consist of resolute robust men; they may be well-disciplined machines, but they will seldom contain men under the influence of strong passions, or with very vigorous faculties.
—Mary Wollstonecraft
Topics: The Military, Army, Navy
I do not wish them to have power over men, but over themselves.
—Mary Wollstonecraft
Topics: Women
I begin to love this creature,
and to anticipate her birth
as a fresh twist to a knot,
which I do not wish to untie
—Mary Wollstonecraft
Topics: Pregnancy
Taught from infancy that beauty is woman’s scepter, the mind shapes itself to the body, and roaming round its gilt cage, only seeks to adorn its prison.
—Mary Wollstonecraft
Topics: Beauty
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
- J. K. Rowling English Novelist
- Rudyard Kipling British Children’s Books Writer
- C. S. Lewis Irish-born Author, Scholar
- Ouida (Maria Louise Rame) English Novelist
- A. A. Milne British Humorist, Children’s Writer
- Humphrey Carpenter English Biographer, Broadcaster
- Russell Hoban American Author
- Theodor Seuss Geisel (‘Dr. Seuss’) American Children’s Books Writer
- James Whitcomb Riley American Children’s Books Writer
- Marie Chapian American Christian Writer
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