Browse 6 quotations connecting Mary Wollstonecraft with Freedom, with meanings, source notes and related themes.
Each quotation is included because its central idea connects with this theme, not simply because one matching word appears in the sentence.
Sources represented here include A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, A Vindication of the Rights of Men, Letters Written During a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark. Keeping the work and source note beside each quotation makes differences in setting, speaker and emphasis easier to see.
Sources represented here include A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, A Vindication of the Rights of Men, Letters Written During a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark.
“I contend for the rights of men and the liberty of reason.”
The line joins political rights with intellectual liberty: the argument is not merely for a different ruler but for people’s capacity to reason without inherited deference.
Source note: 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.
“Reverencing the rights of humanity, I shall dare to assert them.”
Wollstonecraft presents public argument as an obligation to defend human rights even when ridicule or social pressure makes such advocacy uncomfortable.
Source note: 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.
“I do not wish them to have power over men; but over themselves.”
The sentence defines empowerment as self-command rather than domination, centering education, judgment, and personal agency as the basis of freedom.
Source note: A Vindication of the Rights of Woman; Wollstonecraft distinguishes equality and self-government from power over others.
“Make them free, and they will quickly become wise and virtuous, as men become more so.”
Freedom and development are linked: people become more capable by exercising reason and responsibility, not by being kept dependent for their supposed protection.
Source note: A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, concluding discussion of women as rational citizens and the mutual improvement of both sexes.
“Strengthen the female mind by enlarging it, and there will be an end to blind obedience.”
Education enlarges judgment and weakens obedience based only on power, making intellectual development a condition of genuine independence.
Source note: A Vindication of the Rights of Woman; Wollstonecraft argues that deliberately narrowing women’s education preserves dependence and obedience.
“the tyranny of wealth is still more galling and debasing than that of rank.”
Wollstonecraft warns that replacing hereditary rank with concentrated economic power does not automatically secure meaningful liberty.
Source note: Letters Written During a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, Letter XIV; the sentence follows her claim that commerce helped undermine feudal power in England and America.