Mary Wollstonecraft
Mary Wollstonecraft
Mary Wollstonecraftwas an English writer, philosopher, and advocate of women's rights. During her brief career, she wrote novels, treatises, a travel narrative, a history of the French Revolution, a conduct book, and a children's book. Wollstonecraft is best known for A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, in which she argues that women are not naturally inferior to men, but appear to be only because they lack education. She suggests that both men and women should be treated as rational...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionWriter
Date of Birth27 April 1759
How frequently has melancholy and even misanthropy taken possession of me, when the world has disgusted me, and friends have proven unkind. I have then considered myself as a particle broken off from the grand mass of mankind.
A modest man is steady, an humble man timid, and a vain one presumptuous.
Let woman share the rights and she will emulate the virtues of man; for she must grow more perfect when emancipated ...
From the respect paid to property flow, as from a poisoned fountain, most of the evils and vices which render this world such a dreary scene to the contemplative mind.
When we feel deeply, we reason profoundly.
Modesty is the graceful, calm virtue of maturity; bashfulness the charm of vivacious youth.
Why is our fancy to be appalled by terrific perspectives of a hell beyond the grave?
Men neglect the duties incumbent on man, yet are treated like demi-gods; religion is also separated from morality by a ceremonial veil, yet men wonder that the world is almost, literally speaking, a den of sharpers or oppressors.
The divine right of husbands, like the divine right of kings, may, it is hoped, in this enlightened age, be contested without danger.
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.
As a sex, women are habitually indolent; and every thing tends to make them so.
I do earnestly wish to see the distinction of sex confounded in society, unless where love animates the behaviour.
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.
... to improve both sexes they ought, not only in private families, but in public schools, to be educated together. If marriage be the cement of society, mankind should all be educated after the same model, or the intercourse of the sexes will never deserve the name of fellowship ...