Mary Wollstonecraft

Who made man the exclusive judge, if woman partake with him the gift of reason?

Every cloud that flitted on the horizon was hailed as a liberator, till approaching nearer, like most of the prospects sketched by hope, it dissolved under the eye into disappointment.

Men, in general, seem to employ their reason to justify prejudices, which they have imbibed, they cannot trace how, rather than to root them out.

The more I see of the world, the more I am convinced that civilisation is a blessing not sufficiently estimated by those who have not traced its progress

Strengthen the female mind by enlarging it, and there will be an end to blind obedience; but, as blind obedience is ever sought for by power, tyrants and sensualists are in the right when they endeavour to keep women in the dark, because the former only want slaves, and the latter a plaything.

Idleness, rather than ill-nature, gives birth to scandal, and to the observation of little incidents which narrows the mind.

She was created to be the toy of man, his rattle, and it must jingle in his ears, whenever, dismissing reason, he chooses to be amused.

Travellers who require that every nation should resemble their native country, had better stay at home.

It is time to effect a revolution in female manners, time to restore to them their lost dignity, and make them, as a part of the human species, labour by reforming themselves to reform the world.

I dread to unfold her mind, lest it should render her unfit for the world she is to inhabit. Hapless woman! what a fate is thine!

Ignorance is a frail base for virtue!

Nature is the nurse of sentiment, the true source of taste

True, the mildness of reason; but abject fear always inspires contempt; and tears are only eloquent when they flow down fair cheeks.

Life, what art thou? Where goes this breath?⁠—this I, so much alive?

It is respect for the understanding that keeps alive tenderness for the person.

I cannot bear to think of being no more⁠—of losing myself⁠—though existence is often but a painful consciousness of misery

This desire of being always women, is the very consciousness that degrades the sex.

Let me catch pleasure on the wing⁠—I may be melancholy tomorrow.

Before marriage they will not assume any insolent airs, nor afterward abjectly submit; but, endeavouring to act like reasonable creatures, in both situations, they will not be tumbled from a throne to a stool.

Yet I never saw a calf bounding in a meadow, that did not remind me of my little frolicker. A calf, you say. Yes; but a capital one I own.