Mary Wollstonecraft quotes

Mary Wollstonecraft was an English writer, philosopher, and advocate of women's rights. Her most famous work, "A Vindication of the Rights of Woman," argued for equality and education for women. She is considered one of the founding figures of modern feminism. Here are 76 of her quotes:

Women are systematically degraded by receiving the trivial attentions which men think it manly to pay to the sex, when, in fact, men are insultingly supporting their own superiority. (Mary Wollstonecraft)
No man chooses evil because it is evil; he only mistakes it for happiness, the good he seeks. View quote
Mary Wollstonecraft
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. View quote
Mary Wollstonecraft
Virtue can only flourish among equals. View quote
Mary Wollstonecraft
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? View quote
Mary Wollstonecraft
How can a rational being be ennobled by any thing that is not obtained by its own exertions? View quote
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. View quote
Mary Wollstonecraft
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. View quote
Mary Wollstonecraft
Every political good carried to the extreme must be productive of evil. View quote
Mary Wollstonecraft
It is justice, not charity, that is wanting in the world. View quote
Mary Wollstonecraft
Surely something resides in this heart that is not perishable - and life is more than a dream. (Mary Wollstonecraft)
Children, I grant, should be innocent; but when the epithet is applied to men, or women, it is but a civil term for weakness. View quote
Mary Wollstonecraft
Men and women must be educated, in a great degree, by the opinions and manners of the society they live in. View quote
Mary Wollstonecraft
We reason deeply, when we forcibly feel. View quote
Mary Wollstonecraft
Situation seems to be the mould in which men's characters are formed. View quote
Mary Wollstonecraft
The endeavor to keep alive any hoary establishment beyond its natural date is often pernicious and always useless. View quote
Mary Wollstonecraft
It would be an endless task to trace the variety of meannesses, cares, and sorrows, into which women are plunged by the prevailing opinion that they were created rather to feel than reason, and that all the power they obtain, must be obtained by their charms and weakness. View quote
Mary Wollstonecraft
I am a strange compound of weakness and resolution! However, if I must suffer, I will endeavour to suffer in silence. There is certainly a great defect in my mind - my wayward heart creates its own misery - Why I am made thus I cannot tell; and, till I can form some idea of the whole of my existence, I must be content to weep and dance like a child - long for a toy, and be tired of it as soon as I get it. View quote
Mary Wollstonecraft
I write in a hurry, because the little one, who has been sleeping a long time, begins to call for me. Poor thing! when I am sad, I lament that all my affections grow on me, till they become too strong for my peace, though they all afford me snatches of exquisite enjoyment. View quote
Mary Wollstonecraft
It is the preservation of the species, not of individuals, which appears to be the design of Deity throughout the whole of nature. View quote
Mary Wollstonecraft
Till women are more rationally educated, the progress in human virtue and improvement in knowledge must receive continual checks. (Mary Wollstonecraft)
A modest man is steady, an humble man timid, and a vain one presumptuous. View quote
Mary Wollstonecraft
You know I am not born to tread in the beaten track - the peculiar bent of my nature pushes me on. View quote
Mary Wollstonecraft
Women becoming, consequently weaker, in mind and body, than they ought to be...have not sufficient strength to discharge the first duty of a mother; and sacrificing to lasciviousness the parental affection...either destroy the embryo in the womb, or cast if off when born. Nature in every thing demands respect, and those who violate her laws seldom violate them with impunity. View quote
Mary Wollstonecraft
Good habits, imperceptibly fixed, are far preferable to the precepts of reason. View quote
Mary Wollstonecraft