Top 100 Wollstonecraft Quotes
#1. I had forgotten until I looked up old notes that I sold the film rights of my first book, a life of Mary Wollstonecraft: there was a lunch, a contract, a small sum of money, then nothing.
Claire Tomalin
#2. When I wrote about Mary Wollstonecraft, I found that here she was, in the late 18th century, going to work for the 'Analytical Review.' What was the 'Analytical Review?' It was a magazine that dealt with politics and literature.
Claire Tomalin
#3. Like Wollstonecraft, Austen rejects the notion that 'man was made to reason, woman to feel.' Perhaps Austen was tired of reading passages in conduct books suggesting that young women were innately sensitive, quivering, emotional messes.
Emily Auerbach
#4. The atomic bomb which we dropped on the people of Hiroshima was first envisioned by a woman, not a man. She was, of course, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley. She didn't call it an "atomic bomb." She called it "the monster of Frankenstein.
Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
#5. Mary Wollstonecraft Shelly: That's not so ignorant after all. There are two monsters in my story, not one And one of them, the scientist, is indeed named Frankenstein.
Kurt Vonnegut
#6. Jacky, who had read and admired Mary Wollstonecraft, and despised the fashion of fluttery helplessness in women, felt, to her own annoyance, close to fainting.
Tim Powers
#7. Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (whose mother died ten days after she was born) wrote a novel that anticipates Semmelweis's discovery and serves as a parable for the destructive power of decaying matter.
Laura Mullen
#8. His conversation was full of imagination, and very often in limitation of ther Persian, and Arabic writers, he invented tales of wonderful fancy and passion. At other times he repeated my fsvorite poems or drew me out into arguments, wich he suported with great ingenuity.
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
#9. The divine right of husbands, like the divine right of kings, may, it is hoped, in this enlightened age, be contested without danger.
Mary Wollstonecraft
#11. England and America owe their liberty to commerce, which created a new species of power to undermine the feudal system. But let them beware of the consequences: the tyranny of wealth is still more galling and debasing than that of rank.
Mary Wollstonecraft
#12. I do earnestly wish to see the distinction of sex confounded in society, unless where love animates the behaviour.
Mary Wollstonecraft
#13. the master of this person of an excellent disposition. And is remarkable in the ship for his gentleness,and the mildness of his disipline... added to his well known integrity and dauntless courage, made me desirious to engage him.
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
#14. Women are degraded by the propensity to enjoy the present moment, and, at last, despise the freedom which they have not sufficient virtue to struggle to attain.
Mary Wollstonecraft
#16. A modest man is steady, an humble man timid, and a vain one presumptuous.
Mary Wollstonecraft
#17. Would men but generously snap our chains, and be content with rational fellowship instead of slavish obedience, they would find us more observant daughters, more affectionate sisters, more faithful wives, more reasonable mothers - in a word, better citizens
Mary Wollstonecraft
#18. The type of guys I used to date wouldn't know the difference between Rowling and Rolaids.
Tabi Wollstonecraft
#19. The last man! Yes I may well describe that solitary being's feelings, feeling myself as the last relic of a beloved race, my companions extinct before me ...
Mary Wollstonecraft
#23. Either nature has made a great difference between man and man, or that the world is not yet anywhere near to being fully civilized.
Mary Wollstonecraft
#26. Yes," she thought, "nature is the refuge and home for women: they have no public career - no aim nor end beyond their domestic circle; but they can extend that, and make all the creations of nature their own, to foster and do good to.
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
#27. An air of fashion, which is but a badge of slavery ... proves that the soul has not a strong individual character.
Mary Wollstonecraft
#28. What are we, the inhabitants of this globe, least among the many that people infinite space? Our minds embrace infinity; the visible mechanism of our being is subject to merest accident.
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
#29. I must be allowed to add some explanatory remarks to bring the subject home to reason-to that sluggish reason, which supinely takes opinions on trust, and obstinately supports them to spare itself the labour of thinking.
Mary Wollstonecraft
#30. About half an hour afterwards he attempted again to speak, but was unable; he pressed my hand feebly, and his eyes closed for ever, while the irradiation of a gentle smile passed away from his lips.
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
#31. But what a weak barrier is truth when it stands in the way of an hypothesis!
Mary Wollstonecraft
#32. I think schools, as they are now regulated, the hot-beds of vice and folly, and the knowledge of human nature supposedly attained there, merely cunning selfishness.
Mary Wollstonecraft
#33. And I call on you, spirits of the dead, and on you, wandering ministers of vengeance, to aid and conduct me in my work. Let
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
#34. It was, perhaps, the amiable character of this man that inclined me more to that branch of natural philosophy which he professed, than an intrinsic love for the science itself.
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
#35. What but a pestilential vapour can hover over society when its chief director is only instructed in the invention of crimes, or the stupid routine of childish ceremonies?
Mary Wollstonecraft
#36. She decided at once that she and the boy were cut of the same bookish cloth, and could quite possibly become co-conspirators.
Jordan Stratford
#37. What, but the rapacity of the only men who exercised their reason, the priests, secured such vast property to the church, when a man gave his perishable substance to save himself from the dark torments of purgatory.
Mary Wollstonecraft
#38. There are some souls, bright and precious, which, like gold and silver, may be subdued by the fiery trial, and yield to new moulds; but there are others, pure and solid as the diamond, which may be shivered to pieces, yet in every fragment retain their indelible characteristics.
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
#39. Surely something resides in this heart that is not perishable - and life is more than a dream.
Mary Wollstonecraft
#43. There, Margaret, the sun is forever visible, its broad disk just skirting the horizon and diffusing a perpetual splendour. There - for with your leave,
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
#44. 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 weaknesses.
Mary Wollstonecraft
#45. When poverty is more disgraceful than even vice, is not morality cut to the quick?
Mary Wollstonecraft
#47. Men neglect the duties incumbent on man, yet are treated like demi-gods; religion is also separated from morality by a ceremonial veil, yet men wonder that the world is almost, literally speaking, a den of sharpers or oppressors.
Mary Wollstonecraft
#48. My candle was nearly burnt out, when, by the glimmer of the half-extinguished light, I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open.
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
#50. She fixed things that were broken, and then began fixing things that weren't broken, or broke things so they could be fixed in ways no one understood or found particularly convenient.
Jordan Stratford
#51. I like to see your eyes praise me and, during such recitals, there are interruptions, not ungrateful to the heart, when the honey that drops from the lips is not merely words.
Mary Wollstonecraft
#52. 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.
Mary Wollstonecraft
#53. When any prevailing prejudice is attacked, the wise will consider, and leave the narrow-minded to rail with thoughtless vehemence at innovation.
Mary Wollstonecraft
#55. Every political good carried to the extreme must be productive of evil.
Mary Wollstonecraft
#57. The graceful ivy, clasping the oak that supported it, would form a whole in which strength and beauty would be equally conspicuous.
Mary Wollstonecraft
#58. The instructor can scarcely give sensibility where it is essentially wanting, nor talent to the unpercipient block. But he can cultivate and direct the affections of the pupil, who puts forth, as a parasite, tendrils by which to cling, not knowing to what - to a supporter or a destroyer.
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
#59. Truly disappointment is the guardian deity of human life; she sits at the threshold of unborn time, and marshals the events as they come forth.
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
#61. It was not in her nature to stop short at half-measures, not to pause when once she had fixed her purpose. If she ever trembled on looking forward to the utter ruin she was about to encounter, her second emotion was to despise herself for such pusillanimity, and to be roused to renewed energy.
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
#62. [...] and if then women do not resign the arbitrary power of beauty - they will prove that they have less mind than man.
Mary Wollstonecraft
#64. My own sex, I hope, will excuse me, if I treat them like rational creatures, instead of flattering their fascinating graces, and viewing them as if they were in a state of perpetual childhood, unable to stand alone.
Mary Wollstonecraft
#65. Those moral laws on which all human excellence is founded - a love of truth in ourselves, and a sincere sympathy with our fellow-creatures.
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
#66. 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.
Mary Wollstonecraft
#67. She saw and marked the revolutions that had been, and the present seemed to her only a point of rest, from which time was to renew his flight.
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
#69. The greater number of people take their opinions on trust, to avoid the trouble of exercising their own minds, and these indolent beings naturally adhere to the letter, rather than the spirit of a law, divine or human.
Mary Wollstonecraft
#70. Into this error men have, probably, been led by viewing education in a false light; not considering it as the first step to form a being advancing gradually towards perfection; but only as a preparation for life.
Mary Wollstonecraft
#71. Only that education deserves emphatically to be termed cultivation of the mind which teaches young people how to begin to think.
Mary Wollstonecraft
#72. I then supped with my companions, with whom I was soon after to part for ever - always a most melancholly, death-like idea - a sort of separation of soul; for all the regret which follows those from whom fate separates us, seems to be something torn from ourselves.
Mary Wollstonecraft
#73. Who made man the exclusive judge, if woman partake with him the gift of reason?
In this style, argue tyrants of every denomination, from the weak king to the weak father of a family; they are all eager to crush reason; yet always assert that they usurp its throne only to be useful.
Mary Wollstonecraft
#74. Women have seldom sufficient employment to silence their feelings; a round of little cares, or vain pursuits frittering away all strength of mind and organs, they become naturally only objects of sense.
Mary Wollstonecraft
#75. I was like the Arabian who had been buried with the dead, and found a passage to life aided only by one glimmering, and seemingly ineffectual, light. I
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
#76. I considered the being whom I had cast among mankind and endowed with the will and power to effect purposes of horror, such as the deed which he had now done, nearly in the light of my own vampire, my own spirit let loose from the grave and forced to destroy all that was dear to me.
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
#77. And this homage to women's attractions has distorted their understanding to
such an extent that almost all the civilized women of the present century are anxious only to inspire love, when they ought to have the nobler aim of getting respect for their abilities and virtues.
Mary Wollstonecraft
#78. It is a strange feeling for a girl when first she finds the power put into her hand of influencing the destiny of another to happiness or misery. She is like a magician holding for the first time a fairy wand, not having yet had experience of its potency.
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
#79. I love man as my fellow; but his scepter, real, or usurped, extends not to me, unless the reason of an individual demands my homage; and even then the submission is to reason, and not to man.
Mary Wollstonecraft
#80. I do not wish them [women] to have power over men; but over themselves.
Mary Wollstonecraft
#81. Nothing, I am sure, calls forth the faculties so much as the being obliged to struggle with the world.
Mary Wollstonecraft
#83. what a strange nature is knowledge! It clings to the mind when it has once seized on it like a lichen on the rock.
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
#85. When I step into the batter's box, the fans, the noise, the cheers, they all disappear. For that moment, the world is just a battle between me and the pitcher. And more than anything, I want to win.
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
#86. My dreams were all my own; I accounted for them to nobody; they were my refuge when annoyed - my dearest pleasure when free.
Mary Wollstonecraft
#87. My internal being was in a state of insurrection and turmoil; I felt that order would thence arise, but I had no power to produce it. By
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
#88. How frequently has melancholy and even misanthropy taken possession of me, when the world has disgusted me, and friends have proven unkind. I have then considered myself as a particle broken off from the grand mass of mankind.
Mary Wollstonecraft
#90. How dreadful it is, to emerge from the oblivion of slumber, and to receive as a good morrow the mute wailing of one's own hapless heart - to return from the land of deceptive dreams to the heavy knowledge of unchanged disaster!
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
#91. Oh! grief is fantastic; it weaves a web on which to trace the history of its woe from every form and change around; it incorporates itself with all living nature; it finds sustenance in every object; as light, it fills all things, and, like light, it gives its own colors to all.
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
#92. He felt that every sorrow was less than that which separation must produce; and that to share adversity with her was greater happiness than the enjoyment prosperity apart from her.
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
#93. Ennui, the demon, waited at the threshold of his noiseless refuge, and drove away the stirring hopes and enlivening expectations, which form the better part of life.
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
#95. Love from its very nature must be transitory. To seek for a secret that would render it constant would be as wild a search as for the philosopher's stone or the grand panacea: and the discovery would be equally useless, or rather pernicious to mankind. The most holy band of society is friendship.
Mary Wollstonecraft
#96. The birthright of man ... is such a degree of liberty, civil and religious, as is compatible with the liberty of every other individual with whom he is united in a social compact.
Mary Wollstonecraft
#97. Friendship is a serious affection; the most sublime of all affections, because it is founded on principle, and cemented by time.
Mary Wollstonecraft
#98. Spring advanced rapidly; the weather became fine, and the skies cloudless. It surprised me that what before was desert and gloomy should now bloom with the most beautiful flowers and verdure. My senses were gratified and refreshed by a thousand scents of delight, and a thousand sights of beauty.
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
#99. Women are systematically degraded by receiving the trivial attentions which men think it manly to pay to their sex, when, in fact, men are insultingly supporting their own superiority.
Mary Wollstonecraft
#100. Situation seems to be the mould in which men's characters are formed.
Mary Wollstonecraft
