Mary Wollstonecraft Quotes on Nature
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 nature, drawn from across the philosopher's works.
Quotes
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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 -
“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) -
“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 -
“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) -
“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)