Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin Quotes

• It is hardly surprising that women concentrate on the way they look instead of what is in their minds since not much has been put in their minds to begin with.

  Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin

• Invention, it must be humbly admitted, does not consist in creating out of void, but out of chaos.

  Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Writing

• I am very averse to bringing myself forward in print, but as my account will only appear as an appendage to a former production, and as it will be confined to such topics as have connection with my authorship alone, I can hardly accuse myself of a personal intrusion.

  Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin

• Elegance is inferior to virtue.

  Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin

• But I am a blasted tree; the bolt has entered my soul; and I felt then that I should survive to exhibit what I shall soon cease to be – a miserable spectacle of wrecked humanity, pitiable to others and intolerable to myself.

  Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin

• And now, once again, I bid my hideous progeny go forth and prosper. I have an affection for it, for it was the offspring of happy days, when death and grief were but words, which found no true echo in my heart.

  Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin

• A slavish bondage to parents cramps every faculty of the mind.

  Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin

• A king is always a king – and a woman always a woman: his authority and her s*x ever stand between them and rational converse.

  Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin

• I do not wish women to have power over men; but over themselves.

  Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin

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  Tags in Women

• My dreams were all my own; I accounted for them to nobody; they were my refuge when annoyed – my dearest pleasure when free.

  Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin

  Topics in Dream

  Tags in Refuge, Dearest

• Women ought to have representatives, instead of being arbitrarily governed without any direct share allowed them in the deliberations of government.

  Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Women, Government

• Women have seldom sufficient employment to silence their feelings; a round of little cares, or vain pursuits frittering away all strength of mind and organs, they become naturally only objects of sense.

  Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Women, Little

• Women are degraded by the propensity to enjoy the present moment, and, at last, despise the freedom which they have not sufficient virtue to struggle to attain.

  Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin

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  Tags in Freedom

• Why is our fancy to be appalled by terrific perspectives of a hell beyond the grave?

  Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin

  Topics in Uncategorized

• What, but the rapacity of the only men who exercised their reason, the priests, secured such vast property to the church, when a man gave his perishable substance to save himself from the dark torments of purgatory.

  Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Reason

• Virtue can only flourish among equals.

  Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin

  Topics in Uncategorized

• The divine right of husbands, like the divine right of kings, may, it is hoped, in this enlightened age, be contested without danger.

  Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin

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  Tags in Like, Danger

• The being cannot be termed rational or virtuous, who obeys any authority, but that of reason.

  Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Authority

• 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 Godwin

  Topics in Beauty

• Surely something resides in this heart that is not perishable – and life is more than a dream.

  Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin

  Topics in Dream, Life

Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin (62)

Birth:	27th April, 1759
Death:	10th September, 1797
Nationality:	British
Profession:	Writer, Philosopher

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