Mary Wollstonecraft Quotes
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.
Accursed creator! Why did you form a monster so hideous that even you turned from me in disgust?
No man chooses evil because it's evil. He only mistakes it for happiness, the good he seeks.
Nothing contributes so much to tranquilize the mind as a steady purpose - a point on which the soul may fix its intellectual eye.
Only that education deserves emphatically to be termed cultivation of the mind which teaches young people how to begin to think.
There is something at work in my soul, which I do not understand.
The more equality there is established among men, the more virtue and happiness will reign in society.
Modesty is the graceful, calm virtue of maturity; bashfulness the charm of vivacious youth.
Strengthen the female mind by enlarging it, and there will be an end to blind obedience.
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.
My dreams were all my own; I accounted for them to nobody; they were my refuge when annoyed - my dearest pleasure when free.
There is love in me the likes of which you've never seen. There is rage in me the likes of which should never escape. If I am not satisfied int he one, I will indulge the other.
The being cannot be termed rational or virtuous, who obeys any authority, but that of reason.
Let woman share the rights and she will emulate the virtues of man; for she must grow more perfect when emancipated.
Friendship is a serious affection; the most sublime of all affections, because it is founded on principle, and cemented by time.
You know I am not born to tread in the beaten track the peculiar bent of my nature pushes me on.
Simplicity and sincerity generally go hand in hand, as both proceed from a love of truth.
The very winds whispered in soothing accents, and maternal Nature bade me weep no more.
A human being in perfection ought always to preserve a calm and peaceful mind and never to allow passion or a transitory desire to disturb his tranquility.
Men become cannibals of their own hearts; remorse, regret, and restless impatience usurp the place of more wholesome feeling: every thing seems better than that which is.
Of what a strange nature is knowledge! It clings to a mind when it has once seized on it like a lichen on a rock." - Frankenstein p115
Men, in general, seem to employ their reason to justify prejudices...rather than to root them out.
Nothing is so painful to the human mind as a great and sudden change.
Men and women must be educated, in a great degree, by the opinions and manners of the society they live in.
Women ought to have representatives, instead of being arbitrarily governed without any direct share allowed them in the deliberations of government.
The divine right of husbands, like the divine right of kings, may, it is hoped, in this enlightened age, be contested without danger.
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.
My candle was nearly burnt out, when, by the glimmer of the half-extinguished light, I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open.
Till women are more rationally educated, the progress in human virtue and improvement in knowledge must receive continual checks.
. . . the companions of our childhood always possess a certain power over our minds which hardly any later friend can obtain.
The agony of my feelings allowed me no respite; no incident occurred from which my rage and misery could not extract its food.
We cannot, without depraving our minds, endeavour to please a lover or husband, but in proportion as he pleases us.
A mind of moderate capacity which closely pursues one study must infallibly arrive at great proficiency in that study.