Mary Wollstonecraft quotes for UPSC

It may be confidently asserted that no man chooses evil because it is evil; he only mistakes it for happiness, the good he seeks. And the desire of rectifying these mistakes, is the noble ambition of an enlightened understanding, the impulse of feelings that Philosophy invigorates.

Situation seems to be the mould in which men's characters are formed.

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.

Every political good carried to the extreme must be productive of evil.

An ardent affection for the human race makes enthusiastic characters eager to produce alteration in laws and governments prematurely. To render them useful and permanent, they must be the growth of each particular soil, and the gradual fruit of the ripening understanding of the nation, matured by time, not forced by an unnatural fermentation.

It is justice, not charity, that is wanting in the world.

The same energy of character which renders a man a daring villain would have rendered him useful to society, had that society been well organized.

Till women are more rationally educated, the progress in human virtue and improvement in knowledge must receive continual checks.

How many women thus waste life away the prey of discontent, who might have practised as physicians, regulated a farm, managed a shop, and stood erect, supported by their own industry, instead of hanging their heads surcharged with the dew of sensibility, that consumes the beauty to which it at first gave lustre.

How can a rational being be ennobled by anything that is not obtained by its own exertions?

The endeavor to keep alive any hoary establishment beyond its natural date is often pernicious and always useless.

We reason deeply, when we forcibly feel.