Mary Wollstonecraft

"Learning and wisdom cannot be confined by custom or tradition."

"Let us cultivate the powers that nature has given us."

"The future of humanity depends on educated women."

"Women are told from their infancy that beauty is woman's sceptre, the mind shapes the body."

"I do not wish them to have power over men, but over themselves."

"The mind will ever be unstable that has only talents to rest on."

"Asserting the rights which women in common with men ought to contend for, I have not attempted to extenuate their faults."

"If women are not permitted to enjoy equal rights, they cannot attain that independence which alone can make them virtuous."

"How much more respectable is the woman who earns her own bread by fulfilling any duty, than the most accomplished beauty."

"It is justice, not charity, that is wanting in the world."

"A woman should have a profession as a man should have one."

"The most respectable woman is she who scorns to align her conduct with the opinions of others."

"Strengthen the female mind by enlarging it, and there will be an end to blind obedience."

"One cannot live only for oneself, any more than one can live alone."

"I love man as my fellow; but his scepter, real or usurped, extends not to me."

"The beginning is always to-day."

"Taught from infancy that beauty is a woman's sceptre, the mind shapes the body."

"It is time to effect a revolution in female manners and to correct the systems which have made women weak and wretched."

"Girls are taught to please, not to think, to be passive, not active."

"Every thing of this world in which the arbitrary power of man is allowed to have influence, is rendered uncertain and unsteady."

"Virtue can only flourish amongst equals."

"The divine right of husbands, like the divine right of kings, may, it is hoped, in this enlightened age, be contested without danger."

"I am not fond of the word modesty, because I connect with it the idea of timidity."

"Women are degraded by the girlish airs they are taught to assume in their infancy."

"A woman may forget the man who flattered her vanity, but she will never forget the one who acknowledged her independence."

"The most ignominious thing that men can do is to give laws to women."

"To do good deeds, we must understand what is good."

"Slavery to love is the most shameful slavery of all."

"Strength of mind will be conspicuous, chiefly by its effect on the weakness of others."

"It is the duty of every woman to reflect upon the situation of her sex and to redress the wrongs of her own."