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A woman indeed can't properly be said to choose, all that is allowed her, is to refuse or accept what is offered.

Mary Astell

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Mary Astell
Age: 64 †
Born: 1666
Born: November 12
Died: 1731
Died: May 11
Feminist
Philosopher
Writer
Newcastle
Woman
Offered
Properly
Allowed
Refuse
Indeed
Accept
Choose
Accepting

More quotes by Mary Astell

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Women are from their very infancy debarred those Advantages with the want of which they are afterwards reproached.
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Whilst our Hearts are violently set upon any thing, there is no convincing us that we shall ever be of another Mind.
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Every Body has so good an Opinion of their own Understanding as to think their own way the best.
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The design of Rhetoric is to remove those Prejudices that lie in the way of Truth, to Reduce the Passions to the Government of Reasons to place our Subject in a Right Light, and excite our Hearers to a due consideration of it.
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Every one knows, that the mind will not be kept from contemplating what it loves in the midst of crowds and business. Hence come those frequent absences, so observable in conversation for whilst the body is confined to present company, the mind is flown to that which it delights in.
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Unhappy is that Grandeur which makes us too great to be good and that Wit which sets us at a distance from true Wisdom.
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We must Think what we Say, and Mean what we Profess.
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The scum of the People are most Tyrannical when they get the Power, and treat their Betters with the greatest Insolence.
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Women need not take up with mean things, since (if they are not wanting to themselves) they are capable of the best.
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Why is Slavery so much condemn'd and strove against in one Case, and so highly applauded and held so necessary and so sacred in another?
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To all the rest of his Absurdities, (for vice is always unreasonable,) he adds one more, who expects that Vertue from another which he won't practise himself.
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Women are from their very infancy debarred those advantages with the want of which they are aftewards reproached, and nursed up in those vices which will hereafter be upbraided to them. So partial are men as to expect bricks when they afford no straw.
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If a Woman can neither Love nor Honour, she does ill in promising to Obey.
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We may not commit a lesser Sin under pretence to avoid a greater, but we may, nay we ought to endure the greatest Pain and Grief rather than commit the least Sin.
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friendship is a virtue which comprehends all the rest none being fit for this, who is not adorned with every other virtue.
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. . . he who only or chiefly chose for Beauty, will in a little Time find the same Reason for another Choice.
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But, alas! what poor Woman is ever taught that she should have a higher Design than to get her a Husband?
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How can a Man respect his Wife when he has a contemptible Opinion of her and her Sex?
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It is not the Head but the Heart that is the Seat of Atheism.
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Hitherto I have courted Truth with a kind of Romantick Passion, in spite of all Difficulties and Discouragements: for knowledge is thought so unnecessary an Accomplishment for a Woman, that few will give themselves the Trouble to assist us in the Attainment of it.
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