Mary Wollstonecraft

Till women are more rationally educated, the progress in human virtue and improvement in knowledge must receive continual checks.

Virtue can only flourish among equals.

Women becoming, consequently, weakerthan they ought to behave not sufficient strength to discharge the first duty of a mother; and sacrificing to lasciviousness the parental affectioneither destroy the embryo in the womb, or cast if off when born. Nature in every thing demands respect, and those who violate her laws seldom violate them with impunity.

It is the preservation of the species, not of individuals, which appears to be the design of Deity throughout the whole of nature.

Women do not want power over men, they want power over themselves.

I do earnestly wish to see the distinction of sex confounded in society, unless where love animates the behaviour.

The conduct and manners of women, in fact, evidently prove that their minds are not in a healthy state; for, like the flowers which are planted in too rich a soil, strenght state; usefulness are sacrificed to beauty; and the flaunting leaves, after having pleased a fastidious eye, fade, disregarded on the stalk, long before the season when they ought to have arrived at maturity.

Love from its very nature must be transitory. To seek for a secret that would render it constant would be as wild a search as for the philosopher’s stone or the grand panacea: and the discovery would be equally useless, or rather pernicious to mankind. The most holy band of society is friendship.

The being cannot be termed rational or virtuous, who obeys any authority, but that of reason.

When we feel deeply, we reason profoundly.

A slavish bondage to parents cramps every faculty of the mind

Fondness is a poor substitute for friendship.

We cannot, without depraving our minds, endeavour to please a lover or husband, but in proportion as he pleases us.

Men, in general, seem to employ their reason to justify prejudices...rather than to root them out.

A war, or any wild-goose chase, is, as the vulgar use the phrase, a lucky turn-up of patronage for the minister, whose chief merit is the art of keeping himself in place.

The highest branch of solitary amusement is reading; but even in the choice of books the fancy is first employed; for in reading, the heart is touched, till its feelings are examined by the understanding, and the ripening of reason regulate the imagination. This is the work of years, and the most important of all employments.

Weakness may excite tenderness, and gratify the arrogant pride of man; but the lordly caresses of a protector will not gratify a noble mind that pants for, and deserves to be respected. Fondness is a poor substitute for friendship.

Friendship is a serious affection; the most sublime of all affections, because it is founded on principle, and cemented by time.

Simplicity and sincerity generally go hand in hand, as both proceed from a love of truth.