No man chooses evil because it's evil. He only mistakes it for happiness, the good he seeks.
Truth is generally the best vindication against slander
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.
I love man as my fellow; but his scepter, real, or usurped, extends not to me, unless the reason of an individual demands my homage; and even then the submission is to reason, and not to man.
I do not wish women to have power over men; but over themselves.
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.
Till women are more rationally educated, the progress in human virtue and improvement in knowledge must receive continual checks.
It is vain to expect virtue from women till they are in some degree independent of men.
Strengthen the female mind by enlarging it, and there will be an end to blind obedience.
If women be educated for dependence; that is, to act according to the will of another fallible being, and submit, right or wrong, to power, where are we to stop?
How can a rational being be ennobled by any thing that is not obtained by its own exertions?
My own sex, I hope, will excuse me, if I treat them like rational creatures, instead of flattering their fascinating graces, and viewing them as if they were in a state of perpetual childhood, unable to stand alone.
Independence I have long considered as the grand blessing of life, the basis of every virtue; and independence I will ever secure by contracting my wants, though I were to live on a barren heath.
The being cannot be termed rational or virtuous, who obeys any authority, but that of reason.
But what a weak barrier is truth when it stands in the way of an hypothesis!
Men and women must be educated, in a great degree, by the opinions and manners of the society they live in.
In every age there has been a stream of popular opinion that has carried all before it, and given a family character, as it were, to the century.
The divine right of husbands, like the divine right of kings, may, it is hoped, in this enlightened age, be contested without danger.
To be a good mother, a woman must have sense, and that independence of mind which few women possess who are taught to depend entirely on their husbands. Meek wives are, in general, foolish mothers; wanting their children to love them best, and take their part, in secret, against the father, who is held up as a scarecrow.
It is justice, not charity, that is wanting in the world.
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