Check out the best Mary Wollstonecraft quotes and sayings that celebrate feminism, freedom, and the timeless fight for equality and justice.
Mary Wollstonecraft was a pioneering English writer, philosopher, and one of the earliest advocates for women’s rights.
Best known for her groundbreaking work A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, she argued that women deserved equal access to education, opportunity, and respect as men.
Through her powerful writings, Wollstonecraft questioned societal norms and became one of the founding voices of modern feminism.
Her works speak of freedom, justice, morality, and the power of the mind, urging both men and women to rise above prejudice and ignorance.
Wollstonecraft’s bold thoughts showed that true virtue and dignity come from knowledge, not beauty — and that strength, whether of mind or character, knows no gender.
Here are the most famous Mary Wollstonecraft quotes that continue to shape conversations about women’s empowerment, education, and the pursuit of justice.
Top 10 Mary Wollstonecraft Quotes
- “The beginning is always today.” — Mary Wollstonecraft
- “Virtue can only flourish among equals.” — Mary Wollstonecraft
- “Beware, for I am fearless and therefore powerful.” — Mary Wollstonecraft
- “It is justice, not charity, that is wanting in the world.” — Mary Wollstonecraft
- “The mind will ever be unstable that has only prejudices to rest on.” — Mary Wollstonecraft
- “I do not wish women to have power over men; but over themselves.” — Mary Wollstonecraft
- “All the sacred rights of humanity are violated by insisting on blind obedience.” — Mary Wollstonecraft
- “Strengthen the female mind by enlarging it, and there will be an end to blind obedience.” — Mary Wollstonecraft
- “No man chooses evil because it’s evil. He only mistakes it for happiness, the good he seeks.” — Mary Wollstonecraft
- “The more equality there is established among men, the more virtue and happiness will reign in society.” — Mary Wollstonecraft
Best Mary Wollstonecraft Quotes
- “Age demands respect; youth, love.” — Mary Wollstonecraft
- “The appetites will rule if the mind is vacant.” — Mary Wollstonecraft
- “When we feel deeply, we reason profoundly.” — Mary Wollstonecraft
- “Women do not want power over men, they want power over themselves.” — Mary Wollstonecraft
- “Simplicity and sincerity generally go hand in hand, as both proceed from a love of truth.” — Mary Wollstonecraft
- “Men, in general, seem to employ their reason to justify prejudices…rather than to root them out.” — Mary Wollstonecraft
- “The being cannot be termed rational or virtuous, who obeys any authority, but that of reason.” — Mary Wollstonecraft
- “Men and women must be educated, in a great degree, by the opinions and manners of the society they live in.” — Mary Wollstonecraft
- “My own sex, I hope, will excuse me, if I treat them like rational creatures, instead of flattering their fascinating graces.” — Mary Wollstonecraft
- “Let woman share the rights and she will emulate the virtues of man; for she must grow more perfect when emancipated.” — Mary Wollstonecraft
- “Only that education deserves emphatically to be termed cultivation of the mind which teaches young people how to begin to think.” — Mary Wollstonecraft
- “Taught from infancy that beauty is woman’s sceptre, the mind shapes itself to the body, and roaming round its gilt cage, only seeks to adorn its prison.” — Mary Wollstonecraft
- “It appears to me impossible that I should cease to exist, or that this active, restless spirit, equally alive to joy and sorrow, should be only organized dust.” — Mary Wollstonecraft
- “The instruction which women have hitherto received has only tended, with the constitution of civil society, to render them insignificant objects of desire.” — Mary Wollstonecraft
- “Contending for the rights of woman, my main argument is built on this simple principle: that if she be not prepared by education to become the companion of man, she will stop the progress of knowledge and virtue.” — Mary Wollstonecraft
Famous Quotes From Mary Wollstonecraft
- “It is vain to expect virtue from women till they are in some degree independent of men.” — Mary Wollstonecraft
- “Surely something resides in this heart that is not perishable and life is more than a dream.” — Mary Wollstonecraft
- “It is time to effect a revolution in female manners – time to restore to them their lost dignity. It is time to separate unchangeable morals from local manners.” — Mary Wollstonecraft
- “[I]f we revert to history, we shall find that the women who have distinguished themselves have neither been the most beautiful nor the most gentle of their sex.” — Mary Wollstonecraft
- “I think schools, as they are now regulated, the hot-beds of vice and folly, and the knowledge of human nature supposedly attained there, merely cunning selfishness.” — Mary Wollstonecraft
- “Women are systematically degraded by receiving the trivial attentions which men think it manly to pay to the sex, when, in fact, men are insultingly supporting their own superiority.” — Mary Wollstonecraft
- “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.” ― Mary Wollstonecraft
- “People thinking for themselves have more energy in their voice, than any government, which it is possible for human wisdom to invent; and every government not aware of this sacred truth will, at some period, be suddenly overturned.” — Mary Wollstonecraft
- “To improve both sexes they ought, not only in private families, but in public schools, to be educated together. If marriage be the cement of society, mankind should all be educated after the same model, or the intercourse of the sexes will never deserve the name of fellowship.” — Mary Wollstonecraft
- “Strengthen the female mind by enlarging it, and there will be an end to blind obedience; but, as blind obedience is ever sought for by power, tyrants and sensualists are in the right when they endeavor to keep women in the dark because, the former only want slaves, and the latter a play-thing.” — Mary Wollstonecraft
Conclusion
What are your favorite Mary Wollstonecraft quotes and Mary Wollstonecraft sayings listed above? If there is a quote that we’ve missed, then let us know in the comments section what your thoughts are.
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