Mary Wollstonecraft

Men have been more anxious to make women alluring mistresses than affectionate wives and rational mothers.

The desire of being always admired is the reason why women are so often useless.

Many are the causes that conspire to render women more dependent than men; and one, not the least, is the false system of education, which is adopted for their sex.

The common source of all the follies which degrade women, is the inexperience which they are condemned to acquire, till they are mothers of families.

It is a melancholy truth; yet a truth it is, that women, as well as men, without a proper education, will ever be a prey to their prejudices.

I have always been of opinion, that the only way to make women rational creatures, and free citizens, is to allow them to pursue their own interest, and to follow the bent of their own inclinations.

Pleasure is the business of a woman's life, according to the present modification of society.

The grand source of female folly and vice has ever appeared to me to arise from a mistaken estimate of sexual character.

To be more precise, a woman should be educated to be a rational creature, and then she will be a good wife and mother.

Men, indeed, appear to me to act in a very unphilosophical manner, when they try to secure the good conduct of women by attempting to keep them always in a state of childhood.

Why are women not to have the same education as men? Because it would render them masculine and disgusting.

In fact, it is a farce to call any being virtuous whose virtues do not result from the exercise of its own reason.

To be independent of public opinion, is the first step towards dignity.

The very constitution of civil society has been framed in the interest of men.

It is a melancholy reflection that the most important branch of education is often the most neglected.

Women are rendered feeble and wretched by a variety of causes, some of which are natural, but more are artificial.

To be useful is more honorable than to be ornamental.

The most perfect education, in my opinion, is such an exercise of the understanding as is best calculated to strengthen the body and form the heart.

It is a significant indication of the present state of society, that the greater part of the women, who have any independence of mind, are found in the lower classes.

Marriage is a state of slavery for women.