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
Modesty is the graceful, calm virtue of maturity; bashfulness the charm of vivacious youth.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Modesty reflects maturity, while bashfulness signifies youthful charm.
In this quote, Mary Wollstonecraft highlights the importance of modesty as a sign of maturity and grace, contrasting it with bashfulness, which she associates with the energy and charm of youth. This distinction emphasizes how personal virtues evolve over time, suggesting that modesty embodies a deeper understanding and calmness that comes with age, while bashfulness represents the vivacity and innocence typically attributed to younger individuals.
Themes
ModestyBashfulnessMaturityYouthVirtue
In practice
Example use cases
During a speech about personal development, one could quote this to emphasize the value of modesty as one matures.
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
Brilliant men are often strikingly ineffectual. They fail to realize that the brilliant insight is not by itself achievement. They never have learned that insights become effectiveness only through hard systematic work.
Peter DruckerRead
He who sees a need and waits to be asked for help is as unkind as if he had refused it.
Dante AlighieriRead
The intelligent man who is proud of his intelligence is like the condemned man who is proud of his large cell.
Simone WeilRead
Common sense is something that everyone needs, few have, and none think they lack.
Benjamin FranklinRead
Humility can weep over other men's weaknesses, and joy and rejoice over their graces.
Thomas BrooksRead
There's a place in you that you must keep inviolate. You must keep it pristine. Clean. So that nobody has a right to curse you or treat you badly. Nobody. No mother, father, no wife, no husband, noΒΒΒ-nobody. You have to have a place where you say: 'Stop it. Back up. Don't you know I'm a child of God?
Maya AngelouRead