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
Men, in general, seem to employ their reason to justify prejudices...rather than to root them out.
Interpretation
What this quote means
People often use their reasoning skills to defend their existing biases instead of challenging them.
Mary Wollstonecraft suggests that individuals frequently rely on their rationality to support preconceived notions and prejudices, instead of questioning and overcoming them. This quote highlights the human tendency to cling to biases and use logic as a tool for justification rather than understanding the underlying issues that create such biases.
Themes
PrejudiceReasoningBiasIgnoranceSelf-Awareness
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about diversity, I would use this quote to highlight the importance of challenging our biases instead of justifying them.
More from Mary Wollstonecraft
All quotes βMake 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.
Mary WollstonecraftRead
But 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
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