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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

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Mary Wollstonecraft
Age: 38 †
Born: 1759
Born: April 27
Died: 1797
Died: September 10
Businessperson
Essayist
Governess
Historian
Novelist
Philosopher
Translator
Travel Writer
Writer
Mary Godwin
Mr. Cresswick
Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin
Freedom
Despise
Moment
Sufficient
Enjoy
Present
Moments
Struggle
Women
Virtue
Degraded
Literature
Propensity
Lasts
Aggravation
Last
Attain

More quotes by Mary Wollstonecraft

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I must be allowed to add some explanatory remarks to bring the subject home to reason-to that sluggish reason, which supinely takes opinions on trust, and obstinately supports them to spare itself the labour of thinking.
Mary Wollstonecraft
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Some women govern their husbands without degrading themselves, because intellect will always govern.
Mary Wollstonecraft
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...I scarcely am able to govern my muscles, when I see a man start with eager, and serious solicitude, to lift a handkerchief, orshut a door, when the lady could have done it herself, had she only moved a pace or two.
Mary Wollstonecraft
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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
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Women have seldom sufficient employment to silence their feelings a round of little cares, or vain pursuits frittering away all strength of mind and organs, they become naturally only objects of sense.
Mary Wollstonecraft
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Men, in general, seem to employ their reason to justify prejudices...rather than to root them out.
Mary Wollstonecraft
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In fact, it is a farce to call any being virtuous whose virtues do not result from the exercise of its own reason.
Mary Wollstonecraft
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... we never do any thing well, unless we love it for its own sake.
Mary Wollstonecraft
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Hereditary property sophisticates the mind, and the unfortunate victims to it ... swathed from their birth, seldom exert the locomotive faculty of body or mind and, thus viewing every thing through one medium, and that a false one, they are unable to discern in what true merit and happiness consist.
Mary Wollstonecraft
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People thinking for themselves have more energy in their voice, than any government, which it is possible for human wisdom to invent and every government not aware of this sacred truth will, at some period, be suddenly overturned.
Mary Wollstonecraft
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The graceful ivy, clasping the oak that supported it, would form a whole in which strength and beauty would be equally conspicuous.
Mary Wollstonecraft
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When a man seduces a woman, it should, I think, be termed a left-handed marriage.
Mary Wollstonecraft
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Executions, far from being useful examples to the survivors, have, I am persuaded, a quite contrary effect, by hardening the heart they ought to terrify. Besides, the fear of an ignominious death, I believe, never deterred anyone from the commission of a crime, because in committing it the mind is roused to activity about present circumstances.
Mary Wollstonecraft
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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 Wollstonecraft
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Every political good carried to the extreme must be productive of evil.
Mary Wollstonecraft
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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
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Fondness is a poor substitute for friendship.
Mary Wollstonecraft
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It is time to effect a revolution in female manners - time to restore to them their lost dignity. It is time to separate unchangeable morals from local manners.
Mary Wollstonecraft
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Till women are more rationally educated, the progress in human virtue and improvement in knowledge must receive continual checks.
Mary Wollstonecraft
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When we feel deeply, we reason profoundly.
Mary Wollstonecraft