In the education of women, the cultivation of the understanding is always subordinate to the acquirement of some corporeal accomplishment.

[I]f we revert to history, we shall find that the women who have distinguished themselves have neither been the most beautiful nor the most gentle of their sex.

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.

... the whole tenour of female education ... tends to render the best disposed romantic and inconstant; and the remainder vain and mean.

Friendship 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.

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.

The two sexes mutually corrupt and improve each other.