Mary Astell quotes

If all men are born free, how is it that all women are born slaves?

How can a Man respect his Wife when he has a contemptible Opinion of her and her Sex?

The design of Rhetoric is to remove those Prejudices that lie in the way of Truth, to Reduce the Passions to the Government of Reasons; to place our Subject in a Right Light, and excite our Hearers to a due consideration of it.

We all agree that its fit to be as Happy as we can, and we need no Instructor to teach us this Knowledge, 'tis born with us, and is inseparable from our Being, but we very much need to be Inform'd what is the true Way to Happiness.

But, alas! what poor Woman is ever taught that she should have a higher Design than to get her a Husband?

The Relation we bear to the Wisdom of the Father, the Son of His Love, gives us indeed a dignity which otherwise we have no pretence to. It makes us something, something considerable even in God's Eyes.

God is His own Design and End, and that there is no other Worthy of Him.

If God had not intended that Women shou'd use their Reason, He wou'd not have given them any, 'for He does nothing in vain.'

If all men are born free, how is it that all women are born slaves?

But, alas! what poor Woman is ever taught that she should have a higher Design than to get her a Husband?

Although it has been said by men of more wit than wisdom, and perhaps more malice than either, that women are naturally incapable of acting prudently, or that they are necessarily determined to folly, I must by no means grant it.

Truth is strong, and sometime or other will prevail.

We all agree that its fit to be as Happy as we can, and we need no Instructor to teach us this Knowledge, 'tis born with us, and is inseparable from our Being, but we very much need to be Inform'd what is the true Way to Happiness.

Unhappy is that Grandeur which makes us too great to be good; and that Wit which sets us at a distance from true Wisdom.