Best Wollstonecraft Quotes & Sayings

Every where I see bliss, from which I alone am irrevocably excluded. — Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

On being charged with the fact, the poor girl confirmed the suspicion in a grat measure by her extreme confusion of manner. — Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

I then supped with my companions, with whom I was soon after to part for ever - always a most melancholly, death-like idea - a sort of separation of soul; for all the regret which follows those from whom fate separates us, seems to be something torn from ourselves. — Mary Wollstonecraft

Considering the length of time that women have been dependent, is it surprising that some of them hug their chains, and fawn like the spaniel? — Mary Wollstonecraft

Spring advanced rapidly; the weather became fine, and the skies cloudless. It surprised me that what before was desert and gloomy should now bloom with the most beautiful flowers and verdure. My senses were gratified and refreshed by a thousand scents of delight, and a thousand sights of beauty. — Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

All men hate the wretched. — Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

True happiness must arise from well-regulated affections, and an affection includes a duty. — Mary Wollstonecraft

We have one unerring guide...Call it love, charity, or sympathy; it is the best, the angelic portion of us. It teaches us to feel pain at others pain, joy in their joy. The more entirely we mingle our emotions with those of others, making our well or ill being depend on theirs, the more completely do we cast away our selfishness, and approach the perfection of our nature. — Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

The appetites will rule if the mind is vacant. — Mary Wollstonecraft

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 Wollstonecraft

Sorrow only increased with knowledge. — Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

Women do not want power over men, they want power over themselves. — Mary Wollstonecraft

From my birth I have aspired like the eagle - but unlike the eagle, my wings have failed ... Congratulate me then that I have found a fitting scope for my powers. — Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

The birthright of man ... is such a degree of liberty, civil and religious, as is compatible with the liberty of every other individual with whom he is united in a social compact. — Mary Wollstonecraft

Women are systematically degraded by receiving the trivial attentions which men think it manly to pay to their sex, when, in fact, men are insultingly supporting their own superiority. — Mary Wollstonecraft

The best method, I believe, that can be adopted to correct a fondness for novels is to ridicule them; not indiscriminately, for then it would have little effect; but, if a judicious person, with some turn for humour, would read several to a young girl, and point out, both by tones and apt comparisons with pathetic incidents and heroic characters in history, how foolishly and ridiculously they caricatured human nature, just opinions might be substituted instead of romantic sentiments. — Mary Wollstonecraft

The whole tenour of female education ... tends to render the best disposed romantic and inconstant; and the remainder vain and mean. — Mary Wollstonecraft

Children, I grant, should be innocent; but when the epithet is applied to men, or women, it is but a civil term for weakness. — Mary Wollstonecraft

You hate me; but your abhorrence cannot equal that with which I regard myself. — Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

Poetry, and the principle of Self, of which money is the visible incarnation, are the God and the Mammon of the world. — Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

which I hoped to make. None but those who have experienced them can conceive of the enticements of science. In other studies you go as far as others have gone before you, and there is nothing more to know; but in a scientific pursuit there is continual food for discovery and wonder. A mind of moderate capacity which closely pursues one study must infallibly arrive at great proficiency in that study; and — Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

An air of fashion, which is but a badge of slavery ... proves that the soul has not a strong individual character. — Mary Wollstonecraft

The parent who sedulously endeavors to form the heart and enlarge the understanding of his child has given that dignity to the discharge of a duty, common to the whole animal world, that only reason can give. This is the parental affection of humanity, and leaves instinctive natural affection far behind. — Mary Wollstonecraft

I think schools, as they are now regulated, the hot-beds of vice and folly, and the knowledge of human nature supposedly attained there, merely cunning selfishness. — Mary Wollstonecraft

Gracious Creator of the whole human race! hast thou created such a being as woman, who can trace thy wisdom in thy works, and feel that thou alone art by thy nature, exalted above her-for no better purpose? Can she believe that she was only made to submit to man her equal; a being, who, like her, was sent into the world to acquire virtue? Can she consent to be occupied merely to please him; merely to adorn the earth, when her soul is capable of rising to thee? And can she rest supinely dependent on man for reason, when she ought to mount with him the arduous steeps of knowledge? — Mary Wollstonecraft

Precious attribute of woe-worn humanity! that can snatch ecstatic emotion, even from under the very share and harrow, that ruthlessly ploughs up and lays waste every hope. — Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

Thus do we wish as we float down the stream of life, whilst chance does more to gratify our desire for knowledge than our best-laid plans. — Mary Wollstonecraft

The most perfect education ... is such an exercise of the understanding as is best calculated to strengthen the body and form the heart. Or, in other words, to enable the individual to attain such habits of virtue as will render it independent. — Mary Wollstonecraft

Even the eternal skies weep, I thought; is there any shame then, that mortal man should spend himself in tears? — Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

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. Meek wives are, in general, foolish mothers; wanting their children to love them best, and take their part, in secret, against the father, who is held up as a scarecrow. — Mary Wollstonecraft

He that hath wife and children," says Lord Bacon, "hath given hostages to fortune; for they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief. Certainly the best works, and of greatest merit for the public, have proceeded from the unmarried or childless men." I say the same of women. — Mary Wollstonecraft

I think I love most people best when they are in adversity; for pity is one of my prevailing passions. — Mary Wollstonecraft

In the education of women, the cultivation of the understanding is always subordinate to the acquirement of some corporeal accomplishment ... — Mary Wollstonecraft

A lofty sense of independence is, in man, the best privilege of his nature. — Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

I considered the being whom I had cast among mankind and endowed with the will and power to effect purposes of horror, such as the deed which he had now done, nearly in the light of my own vampire, my own spirit let loose from the grave and forced to destroy all that was dear to me. — Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

The sentiment of immediate loss in some sort decayed, while that of utter, irremediable loneliness grew on me with time. — Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

My internal being was in a state of insurrection and turmoil; I felt that order would thence arise, but I had no power to produce it. By — Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

His conversation was full of imagination, and very often in limitation of ther Persian, and Arabic writers, he invented tales of wonderful fancy and passion. At other times he repeated my fsvorite poems or drew me out into arguments, wich he suported with great ingenuity. — Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

I write in a hurry, because the little one, who has been sleeping a long time, begins to call for me. Poor thing! when I am sad, I lament that all my affections grow on me, till they become too strong for my peace, though they all afford me snatches of exquisite enjoyment. — Mary Wollstonecraft

It was the time of saying "Are we absolutely sure about this?" but it was also and more so the time of thinking it very loudly and not saying it. — Jordan Stratford

The graceful ivy, clasping the oak that supported it, would form a whole in which strength and beauty would be equally conspicuous. — Mary Wollstonecraft

Men and women must be educated, in a great degree, by the opinions and manners of the society they live in. — Mary Wollstonecraft

And I call on you, spirits of the dead, and on you, wandering ministers of vengeance, to aid and conduct me in my work. Let — Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

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. — Mary Wollstonecraft

They may be convenient slaves, but slavery will have its constant effect, degrading the master and the abject dependent. — Mary Wollstonecraft

True sensibility, the sensibility which is the auxiliary of virtue, and the soul of genius, is in society so occupied with the feelings of others, as scarcely to regard its own sensations. — Mary Wollstonecraft

There must be more equality established in society, or morality will never gain ground, and this virtuous equakity will not rest firmly even when founded on a rock, if one half of mankind be chained to its bottom by fate, for they will be continually undermining it through ignorance or pride — Mary Wollstonecraft

A virtuous man may have a choleric or a sanguine constitution, be gay or grave, unreproved, be firm till he is almost over-bearing, or weakly subsmissive, have no will or opinion of his own; but all women are to be levelled, by meekness and docility, into one character of yielding softness and gentle compliance — Mary Wollstonecraft