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 WollstonecraftRead
Make women rational creatures, and free citizens, and they will quickly become good wives; - that is, if men do not neglect the duties of husbands and fathers.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Empowering women leads to better family dynamics, provided men fulfill their roles responsibly.
Mary Wollstonecraft emphasizes the importance of nurturing rationality and freedom in women, arguing that when women are treated as equals, they are more likely to become supportive partners. However, she also highlights the necessity for men to actively engage in their responsibilities as husbands and fathers to ensure a harmonious family life.
Themes
WomenRationalityFreedomFamilyResponsibility
In practice
Example use cases
Discussing gender equality at a women's rights seminar.
More from Mary Wollstonecraft
All quotes βBut what a weak barrier is truth when it stands in the way of an hypothesis!
Mary WollstonecraftRead
The divine right of husbands, like the divine right of kings, may, it is hoped, in this enlightened age, be contested without danger.
Mary WollstonecraftRead
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 WollstonecraftRead
Perhaps the seeds of false-refinement, immorality, and vanity, have ever been shed by the great. Weak, artificial beings, raised above the common wants and defections of their race, in a premature and unnatural manner, undermine the very foundation of virtue, and spread corruption through the whole mass of society!
Mary WollstonecraftRead
It would be an endless task to trace the variety of meannesses, cares, and sorrows into which women are plunged by the prevailing opinion that they were created rather to feel than reason, and that all the power they obtain must be obtained by their charms and weaknesses.
Mary WollstonecraftRead
Similar quotes
The greatest mistake in the treatment of diseases is that there are physicians for the body and physicians for the soul, although the two cannot be separated.
PlatoRead
And Christ, through His own salvific suffering, is very much present in every human suffering, and can act from within that suffering by the powers of His Spirit of truth, His consoling spirit.
Pope John Paul IiRead
I think cultures of conformity produce vast quantities of shame, both in people who simply can't conform and people who do conform, but underneath, they're not feeling conformist.
Jonathan FranzenRead
The result of the voyage does not depend on the speed of the ship, but on whether or not it keeps a true course.
Albert SchweitzerRead
No, I donβt wish I knew Heaven was like the picture in my Great Divorce, because, if we knew that, we should know it was no better. The good things even of this world are far too good ever to be reached by imagination. Even the common orange, you know: no one could have imagined it before he tasted it. How much less Heaven.
C. S. LewisRead
States organized for war will make war as surely as hens will lay eggs.
H. G. WellsRead