Let 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 WollstonecraftMen and women must be educated, in a great degree, by the opinions and manners of the society they live in.
Mary WollstonecraftWhy is our fancy to be appalled by terrific perspectives of a hell beyond the grave?
Mary WollstonecraftWhen man, governed by reasonable laws, enjoys his natural freedom, let him despise woman, if she do not share it with him.
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 Wollstonecraft