Mary Wollstonecraft Quotes About Self-Respect

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 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; 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.

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.