Mary Astell Quotes

49 quotes in 609 categories

• Truth is strong, and sometime or other will prevail.
• 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;…
• The Span of Life is too short to be trifled away in unconcerning and unprofitable Matters.
• It is not the Head but the Heart that is the Seat of Atheism.
• None of God's Creatures absolutely consider'd are in their own Nature Contemptible; the meanest Fly, the poorest Insect has its Use and Vertue.
• Ignorance and a narrow education lay the foundation of vice, and imitation and custom rear it up.
• That which has not a real excellency and value in it self, entertains no longer than the giddy Humour which recommended it to us holds.
• The Steps to Folly as well as Sin are gradual, and almost imperceptible, and when we are once on the Decline, we go down without…
• Every one knows, that the mind will not be kept from contemplating what it loves in the midst of crowds and business. Hence come those…
• Hitherto I have courted Truth with a kind of Romantick Passion, in spite of all Difficulties and Discouragements: for knowledge is thought so unnecessary an…
• Fetters of gold are still fetters, and the softest lining can never make them so easy as liberty.
• Your glass will not do you half so much service as a serious reflection on your own minds.
• Nor can the Apostle mean that Eve only sinned; or that she only was Deceived, for if Adam sinned willfully and knowingly, he became the…
• If all men are born free, why is it that all women are born slaves?
• How can you be content to be in the world like tulips in a garden, to make a fine show, and be good for nothing.
• But, alas! what poor Woman is ever taught that she should have a higher Design than to get her a Husband?
• If a Woman can neither Love nor Honour, she does ill in promising to Obey.
• If none were to Marry, but Men of strict Vertue and Honour, I doubt the World would be but thinly peopled.
• 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.
• Marry for Love, an Heroick Action, which makes a mighty noise in the World, partly because of its rarity, and partly in regard of its…

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