Mary Wollstonecraft

But the days of true heroism are over, when a citizen fought for his country like a Fabricius or a Washington, and then returned to his farm to let his virtuous fervour run in a more placid, but not less salutary, stream.

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

Solitude and reflection are necessary to give to wishes the force of passions.

Let us eat, drink, and love for tomorrow we die, would be in fact the language of reason, the morality of life; and who but a fool would part with a reality for a fleeting shadow?

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

The being who patiently endures injustice, and silently bears insults, will soon become unjust, or unable to discern right from wrong.

I never wanted but your heart--that gone, you have nothing more to give.

Only that education deserves emphatically to be termed cultivation of the mind which teaches young people how to begin to think.

...a being, with a capacity of reasoning, would not have failed to discover, as his faculties unfolded, that true happiness arose from the friendship and intimacy which can only be enjoyed by equals; and that charity is not a condescending distribution of alms, but an intercourse of good offices and mutual benefits, founded on respect for justice and humanity.