Quote Atlassourced quotes & context
Named source · 1787

Thoughts on the Education of Daughters Quotes by Mary Wollstonecraft: Context & Meanings

8 quotations linked to Thoughts on the Education of Daughters by or associated with Mary Wollstonecraft, with source notes, explanations and related topics.

About this source

Mary Wollstonecraft’s 1787 conduct and education book Thoughts on the Education of Daughters

Topics and ideas

Reading, education, reason, manners, independence, friendship, marriage, judgment and eighteenth-century arguments about women’s intellectual and moral formation.

Read the source

Open a public or archival text connected with these quotations

Use these links when you want to inspect the wording in its wider work or edition.

Represented passages

8 quotations with source context and meaning

Source identified1
I wish them to be taught to think.

“I wish them to be taught to think.”

Education should produce independent judgment rather than polished imitation, so the ability to think becomes more important than accumulating accomplishments for display.

Source details

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.

Source identified2
We should never give pain without a design to amend.

“We should never give pain without a design to amend.”

Correction should aim at improvement rather than humiliation; causing pain without a constructive purpose turns discipline into unnecessary cruelty.

Source details

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.

Source identified3
Judicious books enlarge the mind and improve the heart.

“Judicious books enlarge the mind and improve the heart.”

Good reading can develop both judgment and moral feeling, making intellectual enlargement and character formation parts of the same educational process.

Source details

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.

Source identified4
A taste for the beauties of nature should be very early cultivated.

“A taste for the beauties of nature should be very early cultivated.”

Attention to nature is treated as something that can be educated, giving children another source of pleasure beyond display, fashion, or social approval.

Source details

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.

Source identified5
The governing of our temper is truly the business of our whole lives.

“The governing of our temper is truly the business of our whole lives.”

Emotional self-command is not a childhood lesson completed once; it remains a lifelong practice because new circumstances continually test established habits.

Source details

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.

Source identified6
It is the duty of a parent to preserve a child from receiving wrong impressions.

“It is the duty of a parent to preserve a child from receiving wrong impressions.”

Early impressions can become durable habits of judgment, so parents carry responsibility for the examples, expectations, and environments surrounding a child.

Source details

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.

Source identified7
It is reflection which forms habits, and fixes principles indelibly on the heart.

“It is reflection which forms habits, and fixes principles indelibly on the heart.”

Habit formation becomes stronger when action is joined with reflection, because principles understood and revisited are more likely to guide later choices.

Source details

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.

Source identified8
Reading is the most rational employment, if people seek food for the understanding.

“Reading is the most rational employment, if people seek food for the understanding.”

Reading is valuable when it feeds judgment and understanding rather than becoming a performance of remembering words without examining their ideas.

Source details

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.