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Mary Astell Quotes
1666–1731 England
Mary Astell (Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 12 November 1666 – Londres, 11 May 1731) was an English feminist writer and rhetorician. Her advocacy of equal educational opportunities for women has earned her the title "the first English feminist."
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8 quotes
Their sophistry I can control
Ambition (1684)
If all Men are born free, how is it that all Women are born slaves? as they must be if the being subjected to the inconstant, uncertain, unknown, arbitrary Will of Men be the perfect Condition of Slavery?
Reflection upon Marriage (1700)
The better our lot is in this world, and the more we have of it, the greater is our leisure to prepare for the next; we have the more opportunity to exercise that God-like quality, to taste that divine pleasure, doing good to the bodies and souls of those beneath us.
An ill husband may deprive a wife of the comfort and quiet of her life, give occasion of exercising her virtue, try her patience and fortitude to the utmost, which is all he can do; it is herself only that can accomplish her ruin.
To withdraw our selves as much as may be from Corporeal things, that pure Reason may be heard the better; to make that use of our Senses for which they are design’d and fitted, the preservation of the Body, but not to depend on their Testimony in our Enquiries after Truth.
Again, if Absolute Sovereignty be not necessary in a State, how comes it to be so in a family? Or if in a Family why not in a State; since no Reason can Be alle'd for the one that will not hold more strongly for the other?
Thus, whether it be wit or beauty that a man’s in love with, there are no great hopes of a lasting happiness; beauty, with all the helps of arts, is of no long date; the more it is , the sooner it decays; and he, who only or chiefly chose for beauty, will in a little time find the same reason for another choice.
She must be a fool with a witness, who can believe a man, proud and vain as he is, will lay his boasted authority, the dignity and prerogative of his sex, on moment at her feet, but in prospect of taking it up again to more advantage; he may call himself her slave a few days, but it is only in order to make her his all the rest of his life.
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