Mary Astell Quotes on Mind
Mary Astell, an early English philosopher and a pioneering advocate of women's education, gave the rational mind a central place in her thought, and the quotes gathered here present it. Astell held that genuine pleasure is rational pleasure, that nothing is in truth a pleasure to us but what is rationally so, and that the mind must be disciplined to hear pure reason the better, not depending uncritically on the testimony of the senses in the search for truth. She turned this confidence in reason to sharp critical use, asking, in a famous challenge to her age, that if absolute sovereignty is not necessary in a state, how it comes to be so in a family. Drawn from A Serious Proposal to the Ladies and her writings on marriage, these passages present the cultivated, reasoning mind as the proper birthright of women as well as men.
Quotes
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Attributed to Mary Astell:
“Nothing is, in truth, a Pleasure to us, but what is rationally so.”
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“Is it the being tied to One that offends us? Why this ought rather to recommend it to us, and would really do so, were we guided by reason, and not by humor and brutish passion. He who does not make friendship the chief inducement of his choice, and prefer it before any other consideration does not deserve a good wife, and therefore should not complain if he goes without one... The Christian institution of marriage provides the best that may be for domestic quiet and content, and for the education of children.”
As quoted in Women's Political & Social Thought: An Anthology , p. 112. Editors Hilda L. Smith, Berenice A. Carroll. Editorial Indiana University Press, 2000. ISBN 0253337585 . -
“Is it the being tied to One that offends us? Why this ought rather to recommend it to us, and would really do so, were we guided by reason, and not by humor and brutish passion. He who does not make friendship the chief inducement of his choice, and prefer it before any other consideration does not deserve a good wife, and therefore should not complain if he goes without one... The Christian insti”
As quoted in Women's Political & Social Thought: An Anthology , p. 112. Editors Hilda L. Smith, Berenice A. Carroll. Editorial Indiana University Press, 2000. ISBN 0253337585 . -
“Thus, whether it be wit or beauty that a man’s in love with, there are no great hopes of a lasting happiness; beauty, with all the helps of arts, is of no long date; the more it is , the sooner it decays; and he, who only or chiefly chose for beauty, will in a little time find the same reason for another choice.”
Reflection upon Marriage , as quoted in Astell: Political Writings , p. 42. -
“Again, if Absolute Sovereignty be not necessary in a State, how comes it to be so in a family? Or if in a Family why not in a State; since no Reason can Be alle'd for the one that will not hold more strongly for the other?”
As quoted in Mary Astell: Reason, Gender, Faith , p. 203, by William Kolbrener. Editor Michal Michelson. Editorial Routledge, 2016. ISBN 1317100093 . -
“To withdraw our selves as much as may be from Corporeal things, that pure Reason may be heard the better; to make that use of our Senses for which they are design’d and fitted, the preservation of the Body, but not to depend on their Testimony in our Enquiries after Truth.”
A serious Proposal to the Ladies, for the advancement of their True and Greatest Interest (In Two Parts) (1697)