Mary Wollstonecraft Quotes: Sources, Meanings & Themes

A Vindication of the Rights of Men, opening letter to Edmund Burke; Wollstonecraft frames the pamphlet as a defense of human rights and the liberty of reason.

A Vindication of the Rights of Men, opening pages; the sentence immediately follows her statement that she contends for the rights of men and liberty of reason.

A Vindication of the Rights of Men, opening letter to Edmund Burke, second edition (1790); this sentence follows Wollstonecraft’s refusal to disguise her sentiments behind courtly politeness.

A Vindication of the Rights of Men; this clause appears in Wollstonecraft’s contrast between habit, manipulated passion, and a character governed by principle.

A Vindication of the Rights of Men; Wollstonecraft is criticizing sentimental rhetoric in Burke, so the passage should not be read as a rejection of compassion itself.

A Vindication of the Rights of Woman; the sentence appears during a discussion of social conditions that punish women while leaving the underlying injustice intact.

A Vindication of the Rights of Woman; Wollstonecraft distinguishes equality and self-government from power over others.

A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, Introduction, Project Gutenberg #3420. The frozen quotation 'I wish to persuade women to endeavour to acquire strength, both of mind and body' is a clause from a longer sentence beginning 'I earnestly wish to point out...' and continuing through Wollstonecraft's criticism of delicacy and weakness as feminine ideals. It remains eighteenth-century feminist political-moral argument rather than a modern clinical or physiological prescription.

A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, concluding discussion of women as rational citizens and the mutual improvement of both sexes.

A Vindication of the Rights of Woman; Wollstonecraft argues that deliberately narrowing women’s education preserves dependence and obedience.

A Vindication of the Rights of Woman; Wollstonecraft explicitly connects independence of character with the exercise of understanding.

A Vindication of the Rights of Woman; the statement immediately precedes Wollstonecraft’s insistence on reason rather than opinion as authority.

A Vindication of the Rights of Woman; the passage rejects a separate moral standard built around sex rather than shared human duties.

An Historical and Moral View of the Origin and Progress of the French Revolution, Project Gutenberg #68724. Wollstonecraft connects “Respect thyself” with religion, justice and self-love while criticizing social arrangements that encourage people to sacrifice truthful character for status.

Letters Written During a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, Letter I; represented Cassell & Company 1889 text in Project Gutenberg #3529, preserving Wollstonecraft’s 1796 travel-letter work. After describing the customary maritime rule against sending out a boat, Wollstonecraft says that “men with common minds seldom break through general rules” while criticizing the captain’s reluctance to depart from convention. This is a first-person travel judgment about a particular situation, not a general empirical claim about ordinary people.

Letters Written During a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, Letter VII; represented Cassell & Company 1889 text in Project Gutenberg #3529. “Thinking of death makes us tenderly cling to our affections” closes the same meditation on mortality and immediately becomes a personal assurance to the recipient of the letter. The line remains first-person epistolary reflection, not a universal clinical claim about bereavement or attachment.

Letters Written During a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, Letter XIV; represented Cassell & Company 1889 text in Project Gutenberg #3529. After arguing that commerce helped England and America undermine feudal power, Wollstonecraft warns that “the tyranny of wealth is still more galling and debasing than that of rank.” This remains historical political-economic reflection within the travel letters rather than present-day financial or legal guidance.

Letters Written During a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, Letter VII; represented Cassell & Company 1889 text in Project Gutenberg #3529. “The contemplation of noble ruins produces a melancholy that exalts the mind” occurs during Wollstonecraft’s visit to a church recess containing long-preserved bodies and her reflections on death, ruins, historical change and mortality. It remains Romantic-era reflective prose rather than a modern psychological finding about melancholy.

Letters Written During a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, Letter IX; represented Cassell & Company 1889 text in Project Gutenberg #3529. The frozen catalog reads “What a long time it requires to know ourselves, and yet every one has more of this knowledge than he is willing to own,” while the represented witness reads “What a long time it requires to know ourselves; and yet almost every one has more of this knowledge than he is willing to own, even to himself.” This collection retains its legacy shortened wording and explicitly records the omitted “almost” / closing phrase rather than silently rewriting it. Wollstonecraft is reflecting on her own solitude, experience and knowledge of the heart.

Thoughts on the Education of Daughters (1787), “MORAL DISCIPLINE,” beginning on printed page 22, Project Gutenberg #67466. “I wish them to be taught to think” follows Wollstonecraft’s recommendation that children compare similar and different ideas; the sentence continues into the next printed page and remains historical educational reform argument.

Thoughts on the Education of Daughters (1787), “EXTERIOR ACCOMPLISHMENTS,” printed page 29, Project Gutenberg #67466. Wollstonecraft says pain should not be given without a design to amend while criticizing ridicule, affectation and correction that humiliates rather than improves; this is historical conduct guidance.

Thoughts on the Education of Daughters (1787), “READING,” printed page 49, Project Gutenberg #67466. “Judicious books enlarge the mind and improve the heart” appears in Wollstonecraft’s case for carefully chosen reading that joins intellectual cultivation with moral formation; the passage remains historical educational and conduct writing.

Thoughts on the Education of Daughters (1787), “MORAL DISCIPLINE,” printed page 22, Project Gutenberg #67466. Wollstonecraft urges that a taste for the beauties of nature be cultivated early and immediately recommends making the vegetable and animal worlds intelligible and amusing to children.

Thoughts on the Education of Daughters (1787), “The TEMPER,” printed page 62, Project Gutenberg #67466. Wollstonecraft calls governing the temper the business of the whole life while discussing habits of self-command and conduct; the passage is moral-educational argument rather than clinical emotion-regulation advice.

Thoughts on the Education of Daughters (1787), “MORAL DISCIPLINE,” printed page 20, Project Gutenberg #67466. Wollstonecraft says parents should preserve children from wrong impressions while discussing early prejudices and habits; this is eighteenth-century child-rearing argument rather than current developmental or clinical guidance.

Thoughts on the Education of Daughters (1787), “THE BENEFITS WHICH ARISE FROM DISAPPOINTMENTS,” printed page 111, Project Gutenberg #67466. Wollstonecraft says reflection forms habits and fixes principles while opening a religious-moral discussion of disappointment, self-examination and character.

Thoughts on the Education of Daughters (1787), “READING,” printed page 49, Project Gutenberg #67466. Wollstonecraft calls reading the most rational employment when people seek food for the understanding, contrasting reflective reading with merely collecting words or quotations; this is eighteenth-century educational argument rather than a current evidence-based teaching prescription.