Mary Wollstonecraft

"Riches and honour have commonly misspent those hearts that were not formed by nature for such temptations."

"The common attitudes of the time make every woman envy beauty, because beauty has been made the only ladder of advancement."

"Reason and virtue, the two chief sources of happiness, produce a tone of mind that cannot be easily disturbed."

"Women are rendered so frivolous by the false system of education that they are often dreaming when they are awake."

"The patriarchal authority of man has been the foundation of all tyranny."

"Taught from their infancy that beauty is a woman's form of power, women come to see themselves as objects to be looked at rather than as thinking beings."

"Nothing so much contributes to corrupt an individual as the exercise of despotic power."

"Independence I have long considered the grand blessing of life, the basis of every virtue."

"A woman without virtue would be abhorrent to all the world, but a man without virtue is not so generally despised."

"Women should be educated in such a way as to be the companion and equal of man."

"There is no security, no safety, in the obedience of slaves."

"Revenge is a weakness, not a strength."

"The exercise of despotism invariably weakens the mind of him who practices it."

"I do not like to make a man feel ashamed of a weakness; for we are all made of flesh and blood."

"The understanding is cultivated by the same means as all intellectual excellence."

"Women have been rendered so frivolous by false education that they cannot even read serious works."

"How cruel are the parents who force their children into life without any preparation!"

"She who does not love mankind cannot feel self-respect."

"The tyranny of man must be established on universal ignorance."

"When women are once put in a state of ignorance, they are rendered weak and wretched."

"The preposterous assumption that a husband has a right to the personal use of his wife is a barbarous principle."

"Truth is the only virtue capable of standing the test of time."

"Women cannot have a mind if they are taught only to be beautiful objects."

"Every being may, from the constitution of its nature, obtain a certain degree of knowledge."

"The divine right of kings and husbands alike has been contested by reason and justice."

"He is only a great man who is really free."

"Without education, there is no virtue; without virtue, there is no happiness."

"Beware of making hasty judgments about people who are different from yourself."

"The price of enslaving women is the corruption of mankind."

"Women are often foolish because they have been taught that foolishness is ornamental."