Love from its very nature must be transitory. To seek for a secret that would render it constant would be as wild a search as for the philosopher’s stone or the grand panacea: and the discovery would be equally useless, or rather pernicious to mankind. The most holy band of society is friendship.
Mary WollstonecraftMake them free, and they will quickly become wise and virtous, as men become more so; for the improvement must be mutual, or the injustice which one half of the human race are obliged to submit to, retorting on their oppressors, the virtue of men will be worm-eaten by the insect whom he keeps under his feet
Mary WollstonecraftThe most perfect education ... is such an exercise of the understanding as is best calculated to strengthen the body and form the heart. Or, in other words, to enable the individual to attain such habits of virtue as will render it independent.
Mary WollstonecraftFriendship and domestic happiness are continually praised; yet how little is there of either in the world, because it requires more cultivation of mind to keep awake affection, even in our own hearts, than the common run of people suppose.
Mary WollstonecraftThere must be more equality established in society, or morality will never gain ground, and this virtuous equakity will not rest firmly even when founded on a rock, if one half of mankind be chained to its bottom by fate, for they will be continually undermining it through ignorance or pride
Mary WollstonecraftLet us, my dear contemporaries, arise above such narrow prejudices. If wisdom be desirable on its own account, if virtue, to deserve the name, must be founded on knowledge, let us endeavour to strengthen our minds by reflection till our heads become a balance for our hearts.
Mary WollstonecraftMy own sex, I hope, will excuse me, if I treat them like rational creatures, instead of flattering their fascinating graces, and viewing them as if they were in a state of perpetual childhood, unable to stand alone.
Mary WollstonecraftWhy is our fancy to be appalled by terrific perspectives of a hell beyond the grave?
Mary WollstonecraftIn this metropolis a number of lurking leeches infamously gain subsistence by practicing on the credulity of women.
Mary WollstonecraftI 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.
Mary WollstonecraftIn the education of women, the cultivation of the understanding is always subordinate to the acquirement of some corporeal accomplishment.
Mary WollstonecraftIt 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 weaknesses.
Mary WollstonecraftWhen a man seduces a woman, it should, I think, be termed a left-handed marriage.
Mary WollstonecraftExecutions, 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.
Mary WollstonecraftWe cannot, without depraving our minds, endeavour to please a lover or husband, but in proportion as he pleases us.
Mary WollstonecraftI 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.
Mary WollstonecraftAt boarding schools of every description, the relaxation of the junior boys is mischief; and of the senior, vice.
Mary WollstonecraftIt is the preservation of the species, not of individuals, which appears to be the design of Deity throughout the whole of nature.
Mary WollstonecraftThe conduct of an accountable being must be regulated by the operations of its own reason.
Mary WollstonecraftI think schools, as they are now regulated, the hot-beds of vice and folly, and the knowledge of human nature supposedly attained there, merely cunning selfishness.
Mary WollstonecraftMake 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.
Mary WollstonecraftBut women are very differently situated with respect to eachother - for they are all rivals (...) Is it then surprising that when the sole ambition of woman centres in beauty, and interest gives vanity additional force, perpetual rivalships should ensue? They are all running the same race, and would rise above the virtue of morals, if they did not view each other with a suspicious and even envious eye.
Mary WollstonecraftIn fact, it is a farce to call any being virtuous whose virtues do not result from the exercise of its own reason.
Mary WollstonecraftThe flexible muscles growing daily more rigid give character to the countenance ; that is, they trace the operations of the mind with the iron pen of fate, and tell us not only what powers are within, but how they have been employed.
Mary WollstonecraftThe more equality there is established among men, the more virtue and happiness will reign in society.
Mary WollstonecraftWeakness 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.
Mary WollstonecraftTaught 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.
Mary WollstonecraftHereditary property sophisticates the mind, and the unfortunate victims to it ... swathed from their birth, seldom exert the locomotive faculty of body or mind; and, thus viewing every thing through one medium, and that a false one, they are unable to discern in what true merit and happiness consist.
Mary WollstonecraftThinking it selfish to dwell on her own sufferings, when in the midst of wretches, who had not only lost all that endears life, but their very selves, her imagination was occupied with melancholy earnestness to trace the mazes of misery, through which so many wretches must have passed to this gloomy receptacle of disjointed souls, to the grand source of human corruption.
Mary WollstonecraftThe divine right of husbands, like the divine right of kings, may, it is hoped, in this enlightened age, be contested without danger.
Mary WollstonecraftOnly that education deserves emphatically to be termed cultivation of the mind which teaches young people how to begin to think.
Mary WollstonecraftI must be allowed to add some explanatory remarks to bring the subject home to reason-to that sluggish reason, which supinely takes opinions on trust, and obstinately supports them to spare itself the labour of thinking.
Mary WollstonecraftWhat, 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...?
Mary WollstonecraftWomen deluded by these sentiments, sometimes boast of their weakness, cunningly obtaining power by playing on the weakness of men; and they may well glory in their illicit sway, for, like Turkish bashaws, they have more real power than their masters: but virtue is sacrificed to temporary gratifications, and the respectability of life to the triumph of an hour.
Mary Wollstonecraft