Mary Wollstonecraft

"The only way women can rise is by leaving behind the prejudices of those who created their bondage."

"It would be an endless task to trace the variety of meanness, coquetry, and acquisitiveness, which men see in the female character."

"The most respectable character, the most useful citizen, is produced when the capacity of the mind is strengthened by exercise."

"Women are human beings before they are wives or mothers."

"To live and act according to some fine ideas and master principles, that surely is something to boast of."

"The most cruel oppression is that which prevents the mind from acquiring knowledge."

"I love the elegant enthusiasm of females, but I do not like their languor."

"It is surely a very odd way of showing respect to women by endeavoring to keep them ignorant."

"Women must be the primary educators of mankind."

"The female, who waits for a man to rouse her faculties, is necessarily weak and wretched."

"A woman who strives for virtue will be the most useful of citizens."

"The mind of a woman is neither so weak nor so inconstant as man has supposed."

"I have turned over various ideas but I am more firmly convinced than ever of the importance of settling women's condition."

"The very independence I shall endeavor to give my daughters is all the inheritance I can wish for them."

"Independence is the only basis of virtue."

"The most despicable thing is to cringe before the great, or be servile to those in power."

"Courage is not a physical quality, but a moral virtue."

"Nothing is so unbecoming a woman as to throw off the feminine character by exaggerating false propriety."

"The education of women should be accommodated to this circumspection."

"Men have been placed in a state of dependence on women in a way that weakens them both."

"The preposterous distinction of rank, which render civilisation a curse, by dividing mankind into tyrants and slaves."

"Unless women are educated to become the companions of men, they will stop the progress of knowledge and virtue."

"A woman who does not respect herself cannot expect respect from others."

"The key to female independence is intellectual development and economic self-sufficiency."

"It is proper to expect women to reason, as it is to expect men to feel."

"Women must have a right to participate in the government under which they live."

"I am now convinced that the greatest evils have sprung from the contentment of women."

"One cannot live only by the heart; one must also think."

"The soul is made great by action."

"It is the only way to please anybody, to do what you know to be right."