A Vindication of the Rights of Woman

The education of women has been attended to more in recent years than formerly; but they’re still regarded as a frivolous sex, and are ridiculed or pitied by writers who try to improve them by satire or instruction. It is acknowledged that they spend many of their earliest years acquiring a smattering of accomplishments, but strength of body and mind are sacrificed to libertine notions of beauty, to the desire to get themselves settled by marriage—the only way women can rise in the world.

Rights and duties are inseparable.

How can women be just or generous, when they are the slaves of injustice?

It is easier to touch the body of a saint, or to be magnetised, than to restrain our appetites or govern our passions.

Make women rational creatures, and free citizens, and they will quickly become good wives, and mothers; that is - if men do not neglect the duties of husbands and fathers.

If women are rational creatures they should be urged to acquire virtues that they can call their own, for how can a rational being be ennobled by anything that is not obtained by his or her own efforts?

To become worthy of respect, women must use their understandings; there is no other basis for independence of character. I mean explicitly to say that they must only bow to the authority of reason, instead of being the modest slaves of opinion.

A prejudice is a fond obstinate persuasion for which we can give no reason; for the moment a reason can be given for an opinion, it ceases to be a prejudice, though it may be an error in judgment.

A woman must know, that her person cannot be as pleasing to her husband as it was to her lover.

It is far better to be often deceived than never to trust; to be disappointed in love than never to love; to love a husband's fondness than forfeit his esteem.