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
There's a great power of imagination about these little creatures, and a creative fancy and belief that is very curious to watch . . . I am sure that horrid matter-of-fact child-rearers . . . do away with the child's most beautiful privilege. I am determined that Anny shall have a very extensive and instructive store of learning in Tom Thumbs, Jack-the-Giant-Killers, etc.
William Makepeace ThackerayRead
I spent much of my childhood in northern Quebec, and often there was no radio, no television - there wasn't a lot to entertain us. When it rained, I stayed inside reading, writing, drawing.
Margaret AtwoodRead
Mathematics is being lazy. Mathematics is letting the principles do the work for you so that you do not have to do the work for yourself
George PolyaRead
I had an American journalist say to me, "Is it true you wrote the whole of the first novel on napkins?" I was tempted to say, "On teabags, I used to save them.
J. K. RowlingRead
Misbehavior and punishment are not opposites that cancel each other - on the contrary they breed and reinforce each other.
Haim GinottRead
The principal goal of education is to create men who are capable of doing new things, not simply of repeating what other generations have done-men who are creative, inventive, and discovers. The second goal of education is to form minds which can be critical, can verify, and not accept everything they are offered.
Jean PiagetRead