Mary Wollstonecraft
The highest branch of solitary amusement is reading; but even in the choice of books the fancy is first employed; for in reading, the heart is touched, till its feelings are examined by the understanding, and the ripening of reason regulate the imagination. This is the work of years, and the most important of all employments.Collection: Book
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.Collection: Strong
The birthright of man ... is such a degree of liberty, civil and religious, as is compatible with the liberty of every other individual with whom he is united in a social compact.Collection: Religious
...trifling employments have rendered woman a trifler.Collection: Employment
In the education of women, the cultivation of the understanding is always subordinate to the acquirement of some corporeal accomplishment.Collection: Education
In this metropolis a number of lurking leeches infamously gain subsistence by practicing on the credulity of women.Collection: Numbers
Some years ago, when the images which this world affords first opened upon me, when I felt the cheering warmth of summer and heard the rustling of the leaves and the warbling of the birds, and these were all to me, I should have wept to die; now it is my only consolation. Polluted by crimes and torn by the bitterest remorse, where can I find rest but in death?Collection: Summer
I am an unfortunate and deserted creature, I look around and I have no relation or friend upon earth. These amiable people to whom I go have never seen me and know little of me. I am full of fears, for if I fail there, I am an outcast in the world forever.Collection: People
At school boys become gluttons and slovens, and, instead of cultivating domestic affections, very early rush into the libertinism which destroys the constitution before it is formed; hardening the heart as it weakens the understanding.Collection: School
At boarding schools of every description, the relaxation of the junior boys is mischief; and of the senior, vice.Collection: Senior
I begin to love this little creature, and to anticipate his birth as a fresh twist to a knot which I do not wish to untie. Men are spoilt by frankness, I believe, yet I must tell you that I love you better than I supposed I did, when I promised to love you forever....I feel it thrilling through my frame, giving and promising pleasure.Collection: Believe
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. Meek wives are, in general, foolish mothers; wanting their children to love them best, and take their part, in secret, against the father, who is held up as a scarecrow.Collection: Mother
People thinking for themselves have more energy in their voice, than any government, which it is possible for human wisdom to invent; and every government not aware of this sacred truth will, at some period, be suddenly overturned.Collection: Thinking
The appetites will rule if the mind is vacant.Collection: Mind
The two sexes mutually corrupt and improve each other.Collection: Sex
Friendship is a serious affection; the most sublime of all affections, because it is founded on principle, and cemented by time.Collection: Sublime
True happiness must arise from well-regulated affections, and an affection includes a duty.Collection: Happiness
The absurd duty, too often inculcated, of obeying a parent only on account of his being a parent, shackles the mind, and prepares it for a slavish submission to any power but reason.Collection: Parent
Judicious books enlarge the mind and improve the heart.Collection: Book
... we never do any thing well, unless we love it for its own sake.Collection: Success
For years I have endeavored to calm an impetuous tide -- laboring to make my feelings take an orderly course -- it was striving against the stream.Collection: Years
Some women govern their husbands without degrading themselves, because intellect will always govern.Collection: Husband
We reason deeply, when we forcibly feel.Collection: Reason
A modest man is steady, an humble man timid, and a vain one presumptuous.Collection: Humble
The mind will ever be unstable that has only prejudices to rest on, and the current will run with destructive fury when there are no barriers to break its force.Collection: Running
Society can only be happy and free in proportion as it is virtuous.Collection: Proportion
Man preys on man; and you mourn for the idle tapestry that decorated a gothic pillar, and the dronish bell that summoned the fat priest to prayer. You mourn for the empty pageant of a name, when slavery flaps her wing, ... Why is our fancy to be appalled by terrific perspectives of a hell beyond the grave? - Hell stalks abroad; - the lash resounds on the slave's naked sides; and the sick wretch, who can no longer earn the sour bread of unremitting labour, steals to a ditch to bid the world a long good night.Collection: Good Night
You know I am not born to tread in the beaten track the peculiar bent of my nature pushes me on.Collection: Track
When poverty is more disgraceful than even vice, is not morality cut to the quick?Collection: Cutting
A king is always a king - and a woman always a woman: his authority and her sex ever stand between them and rational converseCollection: Kings
Till women are more rationally educated, the progress in human virtue and improvement in knowledge must receive continual checks.Collection: Justice
Friendship is a serious affection; the most sublime of all affections, because it is founded on principle, and cemented by time. The very reverse may be said of love. In a great degree, love and friendship cannot subsist in the same bosom; even when inspired by different objects they weaken or destroy each other, and for the same object can only be felt in succession. The vain fears and fond jealousies, the winds which fan the flame of love, when judiciously or artfully tempered, are both incompatible with the tender confidence and sincere respect of friendship.Collection: Friendship
Strengthen the female mind by enlarging it, and there will be an end to blind obedience; but, as blind obedience is ever sought for by power, tyrants and sensualists are in the right when they endeavor to keep women in the dark because, the former only want slaves, and the latter a play-thing.Collection: Dark
Women all want to be ladies, which is simply to have nothing to do, but listlessly to go they scarcely care where, for they cannot tell what.Collection: Care
It appears to me impossible that I should cease to exist, or that this active, restless spirit, equally alive to joy and sorrow, should only be organised dust - ready to fly abroad the moment the spring snaps, or the spark goes out, which kept it together. Surely something resides in this heart that is not perishable - and life is more than a dream.Collection: Dream
Taught from their 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. Men have various employments and pursuits which engage their attention, and give a character to the opening mind; but women, confined to one, and having their thoughts constantly directed to the most insignificant part of themselves, seldom extend their views beyond the triumph of the hour.Collection: Women
What, but the rapacity of the only men who exercised their reason, the priests, secured such vast property to the church, when a man gave his perishable substance to save himself from the dark torments of purgatory; and found it more convenient to indulge his depraved appetites, and pay an exorbitant price for absolution, than listen to the suggestions of reason, and work out his own salvation: in a word, was not the separation of religion from morality the work of the priests...?Collection: Dark
We cannot, without depraving our minds, endeavour to please a lover or husband, but in proportion as he pleases us.Collection: Husband
I never wanted but your heart--that gone, you have nothing more to give.Collection: Heartbreak
It is vain to expect virtue from women till they are in some degree independent of men.Collection: Women
When a man seduces a woman, it should, I think, be termed a left-handed marriage.Collection: Marriage
...men endeavor to sink us still lower, merely to render us alluring objects for a moment; and women, intoxicated by the adoration which men, under the influence of their senses, pay them, do not seek to obtain a durable interest in their hearts, or to become the friends of the fellow creatures who find amusement in their society.Collection: Heart
Fondness is a poor substitute for friendship.Collection: Poor
And this homage to women's attractions has distorted their understanding tosuch an extent that almost all the civilized women of the present century are anxious only to inspire love, when they ought to have the nobler aim of getting respect for their abilities and virtues.Collection: Love
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.Collection: Ideas
Weakness may excite tenderness, and gratify the arrogant pride of man; but the lordly caresses of a protector will not gratify a noble mind that pants for, and deserves to be respected. Fondness is a poor substitute for friendship.Collection: Pride
But what a weak barrier is truth when it stands in the way of an hypothesis!Collection: Way
Women becoming, consequently, weakerthan they ought to behave not sufficient strength to discharge the first duty of a mother; and sacrificing to lasciviousness the parental affectioneither 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.Collection: Mother
When any prevailing prejudice is attacked, the wise will consider, and leave the narrow-minded to rail with thoughtless vehemence at innovation.Collection: Wise