Mary Wollstonecraft Quotes
Mary Wollstonecraft was an 18th-century English writer and philosopher, regarded as one of the founding figures of modern feminist political thought. Her 1792 work A Vindication of the Rights of Woman argued that women appear inferior to men only because they are denied education, and called for legal and political equality on Enlightenment grounds. The quotes below are attributed to Mary Wollstonecraft, organized by topic.
Browse Mary Wollstonecraft by topic
Mary Wollstonecraft on Freedom
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Attributed to Mary Wollstonecraft:
“I do not wish them to have power over men; but over themselves.”
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Attributed to Mary Wollstonecraft:
“How can a being be generous who has nothing of its own? Or virtuous who is not free?”
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Attributed to Mary Wollstonecraft:
“Make them free, and they will quickly become wise and virtuous.”
Mary Wollstonecraft on Happiness
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“I am a strange compound of weakness and resolution! However, if I must suffer, I will endeavour to suffer in silence. There is certainly a great defect in my mind — my wayward heart creates its own misery — Why I am made thus I cannot tell; and, till I can form some idea of the whole of my existence, I must be content to weep and dance like a child — long for a toy, and be tired of it as soon as I get it.”
Undated letter to Joseph Johnson (October? 1792), published in The Collected Letters of Mary Wollstonecraft (2004), edited by Janet Todd , p. 206.
Mary Wollstonecraft on Justice
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“It is justice, not charity, that is wanting in the world.”
Ch. 4 -
“A Vindication of the Rights of Men (1790)”
It may be confidently asserted that no man chooses evil because it is evil; he only mistakes it for happiness, the good he seeks. And the desire of rectifying these mistakes, is the noble ambition of an enlightened understanding, the impulse of feelings that Philosophy invigorates. -
“A Vindication of the Rights of Men (1790)”
Virtue can only flourish amongst equals. -
“Tyrants and sensualists are in the right when they endeavour to keep women in the dark, because the former want only slaves, and the latter a play-thing.”
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman(1792) | Introduction -
“If women be educated for dependence; that is, to act according to the will of another fallible being, and submit, right or wrong, to power, where are we to stop?”
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman(1792) | Ch. 3 -
“Till society is very differently constituted, parents, I fear, will still insist on being obeyed, because they will be obeyed, and constantly endeavour to settle that power on a Divine right, which will not bear the investigation of reason.”
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman(1792) | Ch. 11
Mary Wollstonecraft on Knowledge
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Attributed to Mary Wollstonecraft:
“Genius will educate itself.”
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“You know I am not born to tread in the beaten track — the peculiar bent of my nature pushes me on.”
Letter to Everina Wollstonecraft (7 November 1787) -
“I am a strange compound of weakness and resolution! However, if I must suffer, I will endeavour to suffer in silence. There is certainly a great defect in my mind — my wayward heart creates its own misery — Why I am made thus I cannot tell; and, till I can form some idea of the whole of my existence, I must be content to weep and dance like a child — long for a toy, and be tired of it as soon as I”
Undated letter to Joseph Johnson (October? 1792), published in The Collected Letters of Mary Wollstonecraft (2004), edited by Janet Todd , p. 206.
Mary Wollstonecraft on Life
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“Original Stories from Real Life; with Conversations Calculated to Regulate the Affections, and Form the Mind to Truth and Goodness (1788; 1791)”
Good habits, imperceptibly fixed, are far preferable to the precepts of reason ; but, as this task requires more judgment than generally falls to the lot of parents, substitutes must be sought for, and medicines given, when regimen would have answered the purpose much better. I believe those who examine their own minds, will readily agree with me, that reason, with difficulty, conquers settled hab -
“Independence I have long considered as the grand blessing of life, the basis of every virtue; and independence I will ever secure by contracting my wants, though I were to live on a barren heath.”
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman(1792) | Dedication -
“The endeavor to keep alive any hoary establishment beyond its natural date is often pernicious and always useless.”
The French Revolution , Bk. V, ch. 4 (1794)
Mary Wollstonecraft on Love
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Attributed to Mary Wollstonecraft:
“I am tired of moving from bad to worse, when one quiet moment with a frank, faithful man would be a treasure.”
Mary Wollstonecraft on Mind
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Attributed to Mary Wollstonecraft:
“Strengthen the female mind by enlarging it, and there will be an end to blind obedience.”
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Attributed to Mary Wollstonecraft:
“The mind will ever be unstable that has only prejudices to rest on, and the current will run with destructive fury when there are no barriers to break its force.”
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“Nothing, I am sure, calls forth the faculties so much as the being obliged to struggle with the world; and this is not a woman's province in a married state. Her sphere of action is not large, and if she is not taught to look into her own heart, how trivial are her occupations and pursuits! What little arts engross and narrow her mind!”
Thoughts on the Education of Daughters (1787), "Matrimony", p. 100 -
“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.”
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman(1792) | Ch. 3 -
“How can a rational being be ennobled by anything that is not obtained by its own exertions?”
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman(1792) | Ch. 3 -
“Women are systematically degraded by receiving the trivial attentions which men think it manly to pay to the sex, when, in fact, men are insultingly supporting their own superiority.”
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman(1792) | Ch. 4 -
“It would be an endless task to trace the variety of meannesses, cares, and sorrows, into which women are plunged by the prevailing opinion that they were created rather to feel than reason, and that all the power they obtain, must be obtained by their charms and weakness.”
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman(1792) | Ch. 4 -
“We reason deeply, when we forcibly feel.”
Letters Written in Sweden(1796) | Letter 19
Mary Wollstonecraft on Nature
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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.”
Letters Written in Sweden(1796) | Letter 22 -
“Nothing could be more natural than the developement of the passions, nor more striking than the views of the human heart. What delicate struggles! and uncommonly pretty turns of thought!”
Mary: A Fiction (1788)
Mary Wollstonecraft on Politics
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“Every political good carried to the extreme must be productive of evil.”
The French Revolution , Bk. V, ch. 4 (1794)
Mary Wollstonecraft on Virtue
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“Virtue can only flourish among equals.”
A Vindication of the Rights of Men (1790) -
Attributed to Mary Wollstonecraft:
“Reason is, indeed, the only foundation of morality.”
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“It may be confidently asserted that no man chooses evil because it is evil; he only mistakes it for happiness, the good he seeks. And the desire of rectifying these mistakes, is the noble ambition of an enlightened understanding, the impulse of feelings that Philosophy invigorates.”
A Vindication of the Rights of Men (1790) -
“Till women are more rationally educated, the progress in human virtue and improvement in knowledge must receive continual checks.”
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman(1792) | Ch. 3 -
“The same energy of character which renders a man a daring villain would have rendered him useful to society, had that society been well organized.”
Letters Written in Sweden(1796) | Letter 19
Things actually not said by Mary Wollstonecraft
A number of widely-shared lines are circulated as Mary Wollstonecraft but are in fact from someone else. Did Mary Wollstonecraft say these? No. Each entry below pairs the line with the person who actually wrote it.
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Did Mary Wollstonecraft say this? No.
“Well-behaved women rarely make history.”
This line was written by historian Laurel Thatcher Ulrich in a 1976 scholarly article on funeral sermons for Puritan women in the American Quarterly. It was popularized as a slogan in the 1990s and has since been misattributed to Eleanor Roosevelt, Marilyn Monroe, and various feminist philosophers. Ulrich later wrote a book titled with the line and has repeatedly clarified that her original meaning was descriptive, not prescriptive.