Mary Wollstonecraft: It is justice, not charity, that is wanting in the world!

I do not wish women to have power over men; but over themselves.

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My own sex, I hope, will excuse me, if I treat them like rational creatures, instead of flattering their fascinating graces, and viewing them as if they were in a state of perpetual childhood, unable to stand alone.

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The beginning is always today.

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If we revert to history, we shall find that the women who have distinguished themselves have neither been the most beautiful nor the most gentle of their sex.
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Taught from their 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.
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It is vain to expect virtue from women till they are in some degree independent of men.
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Strengthen the female mind by enlarging it, and there will be an end to blind obedience.
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Friendship is a serious affection; the most sublime of all affections, because it is founded on principle, and cemented by time.
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It is time to effect a revolution in female manners – time to restore to them their lost dignity – and make them, as a part of the human species, labour by reforming themselves to reform the world. It is time to separate unchangeable morals from local manners.
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Make 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.

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I love man as my fellow; but his scepter, real, or usurped, extends not to me, unless the reason of an individual demands my homage; and even then the submission is to reason, and not to man.
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Simplicity and sincerity generally go hand in hand, as both proceed from a love of truth.
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My dreams were all my own; I accounted for them to nobody; they were my refuge when annoyed – my dearest pleasure when free.
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But what a weak barrier is truth when it stands in the way of an hypothesis!
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Surely something resides in this heart that is not perishable – and life is more than a dream.
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It is far better to be often deceived than never to trust; to be disappointed in love, than never to love.
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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.
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Judicious books enlarge the mind and improve the heart.

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It is justice, not charity, that is wanting in the world!

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Mary Wollstonecraft (1759 – 1797) was a British writer, philosopher, and advocate of women’s rights. Until the late 20th century, Wollstonecraft’s life, which encompassed several unconventional (at the time) personal relationships, received more attention than her writing. Wollstonecraft is regarded as one of the founding feminist philosophers, and feminists often cite both her life and her works as important influences. During her brief career she wrote novels, treatises, a travel narrative, a history of the French Revolution, a conduct book, and a children’s book. Wollstonecraft is best known for A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), in which she argues that women are not naturally inferior to men but appear to be only because they lack education. She suggests that both men and women should be treated as rational beings and imagines a social order founded on reason. Wollstonecraft died 11 days after giving birth to her second daughter, Mary Shelley, who became an accomplished writer and the author of Frankenstein.

These quotations are in the public domain and are drawn from a number of books including A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, The Collected Letters, and A Short Residence in Sweden.