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Let us, my dear contemporaries, arise above such narrow prejudices. If wisdom be desirable on its own account, if virtue, to deserve the name, must be founded on knowledge, let us endeavour to strengthen our minds by reflection till our heads become a balance for our hearts.

Mary Wollstonecraft

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Mary Wollstonecraft
Age: 38 †
Born: 1759
Born: April 27
Died: 1797
Died: September 10
Businessperson
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Mary Godwin
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More quotes by Mary Wollstonecraft

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The absurd duty, too often inculcated, of obeying a parent only on account of his being a parent, shackles the mind, and prepares it for a slavish submission to any power but reason.
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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Men with common minds seldom break through general rules. Prudence is ever the resort of weakness and they rarely go as far as as they may in any undertaking, who are determined not to go beyond it on any account.
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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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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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 any prevailing prejudice is attacked, the wise will consider, and leave the narrow-minded to rail with thoughtless vehemence at innovation.
Mary Wollstonecraft
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Men and women must be educated, in a great degree, by the opinions and manners of the society they live in.
Mary Wollstonecraft
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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.
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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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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It is the preservation of the species, not of individuals, which appears to be the design of Deity throughout the whole of nature.
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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As a sex, women are habitually indolent and every thing tends to make them so.
Mary Wollstonecraft
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The endeavor to keep alive any hoary establishment beyond its natural date is often pernicious and always useless.
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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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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Slavery to monarchs and ministers, which the world will be long freeing itself from, and whose deadly grasp stops the progress of the human mind, is not yet abolished.
Mary Wollstonecraft
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Let woman share the rights and she will emulate the virtues of man for she must grow more perfect when emancipated.
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