Mary Wollstonecraft Quotes on Freedom
Mary Wollstonecraft, a founding figure of modern feminist philosophy, made freedom the centre of her argument for the rights of women, and the quotes gathered here express it. Wollstonecraft did not seek for women power over men but, as she put it in a line marked here as attributed, power over themselves, a self-government grounded in reason and education. She argued that virtue itself depends on liberty, asking how a being can be generous who has nothing of its own, or virtuous who is not free, and she held that to make women free is to make them quickly wise and virtuous. She charged that tyrants and sensualists deliberately keep women in ignorance, wanting only slaves or playthings. Drawn from A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, these passages present freedom, education, and virtue as inseparable.
Quotes
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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:
“Strengthen the female mind by enlarging it, and there will be an end to blind obedience.”
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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:
“Genius will educate itself.”
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Attributed to Mary Wollstonecraft:
“Make them free, and they will quickly become wise and virtuous.”
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“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