Tao Te Ching
Mary Wollstonecraft
1759 – 1797 CE
Seminal feminist
Founding feminist philosopher, wife of anarchist forefather William Godwin, and mother of famous writer Mary Shelley; Wollstonecraft was one of the first in the West to advocate for women’t equality and rights. She wrote and spoke against the prevailing view that women are inferior to men and argued that women only appear inferior because of a lack of education and opportunity. Although stridently criticized by her contemporary writers and for 100 years by most believing ‘no self-respecting woman would read her work,’ she was a foundational influence on Jane Austen and scholars have traced her ideas in Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, and as a character in Persuasion. Her influence expanded with rise of feminism in the 1960s and 1970s and continues today.
Lineages
Anarchist British Women of Wisdom
Eras
Chinese
Qing dynasty (1644 – 1912 CE)Unlisted Sources
Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792)
Quotes by Mary Wollstonecraft (16 quotes)
“Taught from infancy that beauty is woman's scepter, the mind shapes itself to the body, and roaming round its gilt cage, only seeks to adorn its prison.”
from Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792)
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“No one chooses evil because it is evil; we only mistake it for happiness, the good we seek.”
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“I do not wish them [women] to have power over men; but over themselves. If women be educated for dependence; that is, to act according to the will of another fallible being, and submit, right or wrong, to power, where are we to stop?”
from Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792)
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“It is justice, not charity, that is wanting in the world.”
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“Surely something resides in this heart that is not perishable - and life is more than a dream.”
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“Make women rational creatures, and free citizens, and they will quickly become good wives; that is, if men do not neglect the duties of husbands and fathers.”
from Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792)
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“It is time to effect a revolution in female manners—time to restore to them their lost dignity—and make them, as a part of the human species, labor by reforming themselves to reform the world. It is time to separate unchangeable morals from local manners.”
from Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792)
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“Friendship is a serious affection; the most sublime of all affections, because it is founded on principle, and cemented by time.”
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“Simplicity and sincerity generally go hand in hand, as both proceed from a love of truth.”
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“...men endeavor to sink us still lower, merely to render us alluring objects for a moment; and women, intoxicated by the adoration which men, under the influence of their senses, pay them, do not seek to obtain a durable interest in their hearts, or to become the friends of the fellow creatures who find amusement in their society… Weakness may excite tenderness, and gratify the arrogant pride of man; but the lordly caresses of a protector will not gratify a noble mind that pants for, and deserves to be respected. Fondness is a poor substitute for friendship.”
from Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792)
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“It appears to me impossible that I should cease to exist, or that this active, restless spirit, equally alive to joy and sorrow, should only be organized dust—ready to fly abroad the moment the spring snaps, or the spark goes out, which kept it together. Surely something resides in this heart that is not perishable”
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“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.”
from Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792)
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“The ripening of reason regulates the imagination. This is the work of years, and the most important of all employments.”
from Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792)
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“soft phrases, susceptibility of heart, delicacy of sentiment, and refinement of taste, are almost synonymous with epithets of weakness and will soon [make the woman] and object of contempt”
from Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792)
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“The absurd duty—too often inculcated—of obeying a parent only on account of his being a parent, shackles the mind and prepares it for a slavish submission to any power but reason.”
from Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792)
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“What unheard of misery have thousands suffered to purchase a cardinal's hat for an intriguing adventurer who longed to be ranked with princes, or lord it over them by seizing the triple crown.”
from Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792)
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Quotes about Mary Wollstonecraft (1 quotes)
“[Wollstonecraft's] writing, arguments, and experiments in living are immortal: she is alive and active, she argues and experiments, we hear her voice and trace her influence even now among the living.”
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