Mary Wollstonecraft Quotes
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It is vain to expect virtue from women till they are in some degree independent of men; nay, it is vain to expect that strength of natural affection which would make them good wives and mothers. Whilst they are absolutely dependent on their husbands they will be cunning, mean, and selfish.
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Every political good carried to the extreme must be productive of evil.
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The divine right of husbands, like the divine right of kings, may, it is hoped, in this enlightened age, be contested without danger.
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The endeavor to keep alive any hoary establishment beyond its natural date is often pernicious and always useless.
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Children, I grant, should be innocent; but when the epithet is applied to men, or women, it is but a civil term for weakness.
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Situation seems to be the mould in which men's characters are formed.
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Nothing, I am sure, calls forth the faculties so much as the being obliged to struggle with the world; and this is not a woman's province in a married state. Her sphere of action is not large, and if she is not taught to look into her own heart, how trivial are her occupations and pursuits! What little arts engross and narrow her mind!
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Make women rational creatures, and free citizens, and they will quickly become good wives; - that is, if men do not neglect the duties of husbands and fathers.
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An ardent affection for the human race makes enthusiastic characters eager to produce alteration in laws and governments prematurely. To render them useful and permanent, they must be the growth of each particular soil, and the gradual fruit of the ripening understanding of the nation, matured by time, not forced by an unnatural fermentation.
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Executions, far from being useful examples to the survivors, have, I am persuaded, a quite contrary effect, by hardening the heart they ought to terrify. Besides, the fear of an ignominious death, I believe, never deterred anyone from the commission of a crime, because in committing it the mind is roused to activity about present circumstances.
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I do earnestly wish to see the distinction of sex confounded in society, unless where love animates the behaviour.
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How can a rational being be ennobled by any thing that is not obtained by its own exertions?
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Till society is very differently constituted, parents, I fear, will still insist on being obeyed, because they will be obeyed, and constantly endeavour to settle that power on a Divine right, which will not bear the investigation of reason.
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In every age there has been a stream of popular opinion that has carried all before it, and given a family character, as it were, to the century.
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It is time to effect a revolution in female manners - time to restore to them their lost dignity. It is time to separate unchangeable morals from local manners.
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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.
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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.
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It is justice, not charity, that is wanting in the world.
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Surely something resides in this heart that is not perishable - and life is more than a dream.
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The beginning is always today.
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The being cannot be termed rational or virtuous, who obeys any authority, but that of reason.
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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.
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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.
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Men and women must be educated, in a great degree, by the opinions and manners of the society they live in.