Mary Wollstonecraft Quotes on Life
Mary Wollstonecraft was an 18th-century English writer and philosopher, regarded as one of the founding figures of modern feminist political thought. This page collects quotes attributed to Mary Wollstonecraft on the topic of life, drawn from across the philosopher's works.
Quotes
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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.”
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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 -
“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. -
“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)