40 quotes
Till women are more rationally educated, the progress in human virtue and improvement in knowledge must receive continual checks.
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792)
It is justice, not charity, that is wanting in the world.
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792)
Surely something resides in this heart that is not perishable, and life is more than a dream.
Letters Written in Sweden (1796)
I am persuaded that even the most spontaneous sensations are more under the direction of principle than weak people are willing to allow.
Letters Written in Sweden (1796)
Executions, far from being useful examples to the survivors, have, I am persuaded, a quite contrary effect, by hardening the heart they ought to terrify.
Letters Written in Sweden (1796)
No man chooses evil because it is evil; he only mistakes it for happiness, the good he seeks.
Every political good carried to the extreme must be productive of evil.
Taught from their 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.
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792)
A modest man is steady, an humble man timid, and a vain one presumptuous.
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792)
It is the preservation of the species, not of individuals, which appears to be the design of Deity throughout the whole of nature.
Letters Written in Sweden (1796)
The same energy of character which renders a man a daring villain would have rendered him useful to society, had that society been well organized.
Letters Written in Sweden (1796)
Independence I have long considered as the grand blessing of life, the basis of every virtue; and independence I will ever secure by contracting my wants, though I were to live on a barren heath.
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792)
How can a rational being be ennobled by anything that is not obtained by its own exertions?
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792)
The endeavor to keep alive any hoary establishment beyond its natural date is often pernicious and always useless.
Situation seems to be the mould in which men's characters are formed.
Letters Written in Sweden (1796)
Virtue can only flourish amongst equals.
A Vindication of the Rights of Men (1790)
To be a good mother — a woman must have sense, and that independence of mind which few women possess who are taught to depend entirely on their husbands.
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792)
Nothing, I am sure, calls forth the faculties so much as the being obliged to struggle with the world; and this is not a woman's province in a married state.
Thoughts on the Education of Daughters (1787)
We reason deeply, when we forcibly feel.
Letters Written in Sweden (1796)
Nothing could be more natural than the developement of the passions, nor more striking than the views of the human heart. What delicate struggles! and uncommonly pretty turns of thought!
Mary: A Fiction (1788)