Mary Astell Quotes
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Your glass will not do you half so much service as a serious reflection on your own minds.
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To plead for the Oppress'd and to defend the Weak seem'd to me a generous undertaking; for tho' it may be secure, 'tis not always Honourable to run over to the strongest party.
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For certainly there cannot be a higher pleasure than to think that we love and are beloved by the most amiable and best Being.
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Marry for Love, an Heroick Action, which makes a mighty noise in the World, partly because of its rarity, and partly in regard of its extravagancy.
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Women are not so well united as to form an Insurrection. They are for the most part wise enough to love their Chains, and to discern how becomingly they fit.
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If all men are born free, how is it that all women are born slaves?
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Every Body has so good an Opinion of their own Understanding as to think their own way the best.
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Hitherto I have courted Truth with a kind of Romantick Passion, in spite of all Difficulties and Discouragements: for knowledge is thought so unnecessary an Accomplishment for a Woman, that few will give themselves the Trouble to assist us in the Attainment of it.
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Nor can the Apostle mean that Eve only sinned; or that she only was Deceived, for if Adam sinned willfully and knowingly, he became the greater Transgressor.
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He who will be just, must be forc'd to acknowledge, that neither Sex are always in the right.
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Why is Slavery so much condemn'd and strove against in one Case, and so highly applauded and held so necessary and so sacred in another?
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Whilst our Hearts are violently set upon any thing, there is no convincing us that we shall ever be of another Mind.
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None of God's Creatures absolutely consider'd are in their own Nature Contemptible; the meanest Fly, the poorest Insect has its Use and Vertue.
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The Soul debases her self, when she sets her affections on any thing but her creator.
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'Tis very great pity that they who are so apt to over-rate themselves in smaller matters, shou'd, where it most concerns them to know, and stand upon their Value, be so insensible of their own worth.
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If God had not intended that Women shou'd use their Reason, He wou'd not have given them any, 'for He does nothing in vain.'
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The better our lot is in this world, and the more we have of it, the greater is our leisure to prepare for the next; we have the more opportunity to exercise that God-like quality, to taste that divine pleasure, doing good to the bodies and souls of those beneath us.
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If none were to Marry, but Men of strict Vertue and Honour, I doubt the World would be but thinly peopled.
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Women need not take up with mean things, since (if they are not wanting to themselves) they are capable of the best.
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To all the rest of his Absurdities, (for vice is always unreasonable,) he adds one more, who expects that Vertue from another which he won't practise himself.
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None of us whether Men or Women but have so good an Opinion of our own Conduct as to believe we are fit, if not to direct others, at least to govern our selves.
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Certain I am, that Christian Religion does no where allow Rebellion.
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It is not the Head but the Heart that is the Seat of Atheism.
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That which has not a real excellency and value in it self, entertains no longer than the giddy Humour which recommended it to us holds.