Taught from 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.
Mary WollstonecraftRead
Only that education deserves emphatically to be termed cultivation of the mind which teaches young people how to begin to think.
Interpretation
What this quote means
True education is about teaching critical thinking skills.
In this quote, Mary Wollstonecraft emphasizes that the essence of education lies not just in the transmission of knowledge but in fostering the ability to think independently and critically. She argues that a genuine educational experience should cultivate the mind, equipping young people with the skills necessary to analyze, question, and engage thoughtfully with the world around them.
Themes
EducationThinkingMindCultivationCritical Thinking
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in a speech about the importance of reforming educational systems.
More from Mary Wollstonecraft
All quotes βMake women rational creatures, and free citizens, and they will quickly become good wives; - that is, if men do not neglect the duties of husbands and fathers.
Mary WollstonecraftRead
But what a weak barrier is truth when it stands in the way of an hypothesis!
Mary WollstonecraftRead
The divine right of husbands, like the divine right of kings, may, it is hoped, in this enlightened age, be contested without danger.
Mary WollstonecraftRead
Women are degraded by the propensity to enjoy the present moment, and, at last, despise the freedom which they have not sufficient virtue to struggle to attain.
Mary WollstonecraftRead
Perhaps the seeds of false-refinement, immorality, and vanity, have ever been shed by the great. Weak, artificial beings, raised above the common wants and defections of their race, in a premature and unnatural manner, undermine the very foundation of virtue, and spread corruption through the whole mass of society!
Mary WollstonecraftRead
Similar quotes
Reading is at the center of our lives. The library is our brain. Without the library, you have no civilization.
Ray BradburyRead
For me, literacy means freedom. For the individual and for society.
Levar BurtonRead
The more important argument against grade curves is that they create an atmosphere that's toxic by pitting students against one another. At best, it creates a hypercompetitive culture, and at worst, it sends students the message that the world is a zero-sum game: Your success means my failure.
Adam GrantRead
Real knowledge, like every thing else of the highest value, is not to be obtained so easily. It must be worked for, β studied for, β thought for, β and more than all, it must be prayed for.
Thomas ArnoldRead
We need literature because we wouldnβt fully know ourselves without it. We need good literature to be fully human.
Edwidge DanticatRead
Notice how many of the Olympic athletes effusively thanked their mothers for their success? βShe drove me to my practice at four in the morning,β etc. Writing is not figure skating or skiing. Your mother will not make you a writer. My advice to any young person who wants to write is: leave home.
Paul TherouxRead