In Her Own Words

“I…am preparing you, who are to live for ever, to be fit for the society of angels, and good men made perfect. This world, I told you, was a road to a better—a preparation for it; if we suffer, we grow humbler and wiser…” - Original Stories (OS)

“I fear not death!—I only fear that Being who can render death terrible, on whose providence I calmly rest; and my confidence earthly sorrows cannot destroy.  A mind is never truly great, till the love of virtue overcomes the fear of death.” (OS)

“...your heart was not engaged in the sacred employment, or you could not so soon have forgotten that you were a weak, dependent being, and that you were to receive mercy and kindness only on the condition of your practising the same.” (OS)

“The festivity within, and the placidity without, led my thoughts naturally to the source from whence my comfort springs—to the Great Bestower of every blessing.  Prayer, my children, is the dearest privilege of man, and the support of a feeling heart” (OS)

“…feeling the presence of my Creator, I poured out my soul before Him—and was no longer alone!—I now daily contemplate His wonderful goodness; and, though at an awful distance, try to imitate Him.” (OS)

“The wiser, and the better you grow, the more visible, if I may use the expression, will God become—For wisdom consists in searching Him out—and goodness in endeavouring to copy His attributes.” (OS)

“There is in fact a constant intercourse kept up with the Creator, when we learn to consider Him, as the fountain of truth, which our understanding naturally thirsts after.” (OS)

“She lives indeed alone, and has all day only the society of children; yet she enjoys many true pleasures; dependence on God is her support, and devotion her comfort.” (OS)

“We ought to be proud of our original, but we should trace it to our Heavenly Father, who breathed into us the breath of life.” (OS)

“accomplishments should be cultivated to render us pleasing to our domestic friends; virtue is necessary; it must ever be the foundation of our peace and usefulness; but when we are capable of affection, we wish to have something peculiar to ourselves” (OS)

“...piety is not to be acquired in the hour of trouble; it must have been a cherished inmate of the soul, or it will not afford consolation when every other source fails.” - The Female Reader (FR)

“An attention to truth gives dignity to the manners: and a dependence on Providence banishes those fears which render many girls very ridiculous, and make them appear as insignificant as they are helpless; if they do not endeavour to conquer them they will forfeit the esteem of those whose protection they most want-the good and the wise.” (FR)

“As we are created accountable creatures we must run the race ourselves, and by our own exertions acquire virtue: the utmost our friends can do is to point out the right road, and clear away some of the loose rubbish which might at first retard our progress” (FR)

“It is, in my opinion, a well-proved fact, that principles of truth are innate.” - Thoughts on the Education of Daughters (TED)

“The main business of our lives is to learn to be virtuous; and He who is training us up for immortal bliss, knows best what trials will contribute to make us so; and our resignation and improvement will render us respectable to ourselves, and to that Being, whose approbation is of more value than life itself.” (TED)

“A benevolent person must ever wish to see those around them comfortable, and try to be the cause of that comfort.” (TED)

“If we look for any comfort in friendship or society, we must associate with those who have fixed principles with respect to religion; for without them, repeated experience convinces me, the most shining qualities are unstable, and not to be depended on.” (TED)

“It has often been a matter of surprise to me, that so few people examine the tenets of the religion they profess, or are christians through conviction. They have no anchor to rest on, nor any fixed chart to direct them in the doubtful voyage of life; how then can they hope to find the ‘haven of rest?’” (TED)

“A nice sense of right and wrong ought to be acquired, and then not only great vices will be avoided, but every little meanness; truth will reign in the inward parts, and mercy will attend her.” (TED)

“And yet we were made to be happy! But our passions will not contribute much to our bliss, till they are under the dominion of reason, and till that reason is enlightened and improved. Then sighing will cease, and all tears will be wiped away by that Being, in whose presence there is fulness of joy.” (TED)

“In the school of adversity we learn knowledge as well as virtue…” (TED)

“As every kind of domestic concern and family business is properly a woman’s province, to enable her to discharge her duty she should study the different branches of it.” (TED)

“...the love of mankind, from which an orderly train of virtues spring, can only be produced by considering the moral and civil interest of mankind; but the education and situation of woman, at present, shuts her out from such investigations.” - Rights of Woman (RW)

“...chastity must more universally prevail, and that chastity will never be respected in the male world till the person of a woman is not, as it were, idolized, when little virtue or sense embellish it with the grand traces of mental beauty…” (RW)

“...the more understanding women acquire, the more they will be attached to their duty—comprehending it—for unless they comprehend it, unless their morals be fixed on the same immutable principle as those of man, no authority can make them discharge it in a virtuous manner.” (RW)

“Let there be then no coercion established in society, and the common law of gravity prevailing, the sexes will fall into their proper places. And, now that more equitable laws are forming your citizens, marriage may become more sacred: your young men may choose wives from motives of affection, and your maidens allow love to root out vanity.” (RW)

“...men who, considering females rather as women than human creatures, have been more anxious to make them alluring mistresses than wives..” (RW)

“I heard exclamations against masculine women; but where are they to be found?…if it be against the imitation of manly virtues, or, more properly speaking, the attainment of those talents and virtues, the exercise of which ennobles the human character, and which raises females in the scale of animal being, when they are comprehensively termed mankind;—all those who view them with a philosophical eye must, I should think, wish with me, that they may every day grow more and more masculine.” (RW) 

“I shall first consider women in the grand light of human creatures, who, in common with men, are placed on this earth to unfold their faculties.” (RW)

“…the education of the rich tends to render them vain and helpless, and the unfolding mind is not strengthened by the practice of those duties which dignify the human character.” (RW)

“My own sex, I hope, will excuse me, if I treat them like rational creatures, instead of flattering their fascinating graces, and viewing them as if they were in a state of perpetual childhood, unable to stand alone.” (RW)

“I earnestly wish to point out in what true dignity and human happiness consists—I wish to persuade women to endeavour to acquire strength, both of mind and body…” (RW)

“I wish to show that elegance is inferior to virtue, that the first object of laudable ambition is to obtain a character as a human being, regardless of the distinction of sex…” (RW)

“...there is little reason to fear that women will acquire too much courage or fortitude; for their apparent inferiority with respect to bodily strength, must render them, in some degree, dependent on men in the various relations of life; but why should it be increased by prejudices that give a sex to virtue, and confound simple truths with sensual reveries?” (RW)

“Consequently the perfection of our nature and capability of happiness, must be estimated by the degree of reason, virtue, and knowledge, that distinguish the individual, and direct the laws which bind society…”

“...women are not allowed to have sufficient strength of mind to acquire what really deserves the name of virtue. Yet it should seem, allowing them to have souls, that there is but one way appointed by Providence to lead mankind to either virtue or happiness.” (RW)

“Men, indeed, appear to me to act in a very unphilosophical manner when they try to secure the good conduct of women by attempting to keep them always in a state of childhood.” (RW)

“...women were destined by Providence to acquire human virtues, and by the exercise of their understanding, that stability of character which is the firmest ground to rest our future hopes upon, they must be permitted to turn to the fountain of light…” (RW)

“Connected with man as daughters, wives, and mothers, their moral character may be estimated by their manner of fulfilling those simple duties; but the end, the grand end of their exertions should be to unfold their own faculties and acquire the dignity of conscious virtue.” (RW)

“…life yields not the felicity which can satisfy an immortal soul.” (RW)

“I do not mean to insinuate, that either sex should be so lost in abstract reflections or distant views, as to forget the affections and duties that lie before them, and are, in truth, the means appointed to produce the fruit of life…” (RW)

“Weakness may excite tenderness, and gratify the arrogant pride of man; but the lordly caresses of a protector will not gratify a noble mind that pants for, and deserves to be respected. Fondness is a poor substitute for friendship!” (RW)

“Besides, the woman who strengthens her body and exercises her mind will, by managing her family and practising various virtues, become the friend, and not the humble dependent of her husband…” (RW)

“Gentleness, docility, and a spaniel-like affection are, on this ground, consistently recommended as the cardinal virtues of the sex…” (RW)

“To recommend gentleness, indeed, on a broad basis is strictly philosophical. A frail being should labour to be gentle. But when forbearance confounds right and wrong, it ceases to be a virtue…” (RW)

“If there is but one criterion of morals, but one archetype for man, women appear to be suspended by destiny… they have neither the unerring instinct of brutes, nor are allowed to fix the eye of reason on a perfect model. They were made to be loved, and must not aim at respect, lest they should be hunted out of society as masculine.” (RW)

“And have women, who have early imbibed notions of passive obedience, sufficient character to manage a family or educate children?” (RW)

“Let their faculties have room to unfold, and their virtues to gain strength, and then determine where the whole sex must stand in the intellectual scale.” (RW)

“…it cannot be demonstrated that woman is essentially inferior to man because she has always been subjugated.” (RW)

“the knowledge of the two sexes should be the same in nature, if not in degree, and that women, considered not only as moral, but rational creatures, ought to endeavour to acquire human virtues…” (RW)

“It is time to effect a revolution in female manners—time to restore to them their lost dignity—and make them, as a part of the human species, labour by reforming themselves to reform the world.” (RW)

“The only solid foundation for morality appears to be the character of the supreme Being; the harmony of which arises from a balance of attributes…” (RW)

“For to love God as the fountain of wisdom, goodness, and power, appears to be the only worship useful to a being who wishes to acquire either virtue or knowledge.” (RW)

“Women, I allow, may have different duties to fulfil; but they are human duties, and the principles that should regulate the discharge of them, I sturdily maintain, must be the same.” (RW)

“This is the very point I aim at. I do not wish them [women] to have power over men; but over themselves. Without knowledge there can be no morality!” (RW)

“...highly as I respect marriage, as the foundation of almost every social virtue…” (RW)

“If we mean, in short, to live in the world, to grow wiser and better, and not merely to enjoy the good things of life, we must attain a knowledge of others at the same time that we become acquainted with ourselves—knowledge…” (RW)

“If you wish to make your son rich, pursue one course—if you are only anxious to make him virtuous, you must take another; but do not imagine that you can bound from one road to the other without losing your way.” (RW)

“Make the heart clean, let it expand and feel for all that is human, instead of being narrowed by selfish passions…” (RW)

“Modesty must be equally cultivated by both sexes” (RW)

“Women as well as men ought to have the common appetites and passions of their nature, they are only brutal when unchecked by reason: but the obligation to check them is the duty of mankind, not a sexual duty.” (RW)

“...for unless virtue, of any kind, is built on knowledge, it will only produce a kind of insipid decency. Respect for the opinion of the world, has, however, been termed the principal duty of woman in the most express words…” (RW)

“The agonized heart will cry with suffocating impatience—I too am a man! and have vices, hid, perhaps, from human eye, that bend me to the dust before God, and loudly tell me, when all is mute, that we are formed of the same earth, and breathe the same element. Humanity thus rises naturally out of humility, and twists the cords of love that in various convolutions entangle the heart.” (RW)

“...with respect to reputation, the attention is confined to a single virtue—chastity. If the honour of a woman, as it is absurdly called, is safe, she may neglect every social duty; nay, ruin her family by gaming and extravagance; yet still present a shameless front—for truly she is an honourable woman!” (RW)

“Men are certainly more under the influence of their appetites than women; and their appetites are more depraved by unbridled indulgence and the fastidious contrivances of satiety.” (RW)

“Women then having necessarily some duty to fulfil, more noble than to adorn their persons, would not contentedly be the slaves of casual appetite; which is now the situation of a very considerable number who are, literally speaking, standing dishes to which every glutton may have access.” (RW)

“For I will venture to assert, that all the causes of female weakness, as well as depravity, which I have already enlarged on, branch out of one grand cause—want of chastity in men.” (RW)

“Women becoming, consequently, weaker, in mind and body, than they ought to be, were one of the grand ends of their being taken into the account, that of bearing and nursing children, have not sufficient strength to discharge the first duty of a mother; and sacrificing to lasciviousness the parental affection, that ennobles instinct, either destroy the embryo in the womb, or cast it off when born.” (RW)

“Surely nature never intended that women, by satisfying an appetite, should frustrate the very purpose for which it was implanted! I have before observed, that men ought to maintain the women whom they have seduced…” (RW)

“The two sexes mutually corrupt and improve each other. This I believe to be an indisputable truth, extending it to every virtue. Chastity, modesty, public spirit, and all the noble train of virtues, on which social virtue and happiness are built, should be understood and cultivated by all mankind, or they will be cultivated to little effect.” (RW)

“Virtue likewise can only be acquired by the discharge of relative duties” (RW)

“There must be more equality established in society, or morality will never gain ground” (RW)

“Nature has wisely attached affections to duties, to sweeten toil, and to give that vigour to the exertions of reason which only the heart can give.” (RW)

“...when a woman is admired for her beauty, and suffers herself to be so far intoxicated by the admiration she receives, as to neglect to discharge the indispensable duty of a mother, she sins against herself by neglecting to cultivate an affection that would equally tend to make her useful and happy.” (RW)

“...a couple of this description, equally necessary and independent of each other, because each fulfilled the respective duties of their station, possessed all that life could give.” (RW)

“...respectability is not attached to the discharge of the relative duties of life, but to the station, and when the duties are not fulfilled the affections cannot gain sufficient strength to fortify the virtue of which they are the natural reward.” (RW)

“A truly benevolent legislator always endeavours to make it the interest of each individual to be virtuous; and thus private virtue becoming the cement of public happiness, an orderly whole is consolidated by the tendency of all the parts towards a common centre.” (RW)

“Why subject her to propriety—blind propriety, if she be capable of acting from a nobler spring, if she be an heir of immortality?” (RW)

“...should they be ambitious, they must govern their tyrants by sinister tricks, for without rights there cannot be any incumbent duties.” (RW)

“The being who discharges the duties of its station is independent; and, speaking of women at large, their first duty is to themselves as rational creatures, and the next, in point of importance, as citizens, is that, which includes so many, of a mother.” (RW)

“...take away natural rights, and there is of course an end of duties.” (RW)

“...women in the common walks of life are called to fulfil the duties of wives and mothers, by religion and reason, I cannot help lamenting that women of a superiour cast have not a road open by which they can pursue more extensive plans of usefulness and independence.” (RW)

“...in order to render their private virtue a public benefit, they must have a civil existence in the state” (RW)

“Would men but generously snap our chains, and be content with rational fellowship instead of slavish obedience, they would find us more observant daughters, more affectionate sisters, more faithful wives, more reasonable mothers—in a word, better citizens.” (RW)

“As the care of children in their infancy is one of the grand duties annexed to the female character by nature, this duty would afford many forcible arguments for strengthening the female understanding, if it were properly considered.” (RW)

“To be a good mother—a woman must have sense, and that independence of mind which few women possess who are taught to depend entirely on their husbands. Meek wives are, in general, foolish mothers…” (RW)

“I now only mean to insist, that unless the understanding of woman be enlarged, and her character rendered more firm, by being allowed to govern her own conduct, she will never have sufficient sense or command of temper to manage her children properly.” (RW)

“...indispensable duty of men and women to fulfil the duties which give birth to affections that are the surest preservatives against vice.” (RW)

“...affections must grow out of the habitual exercise of a mutual sympathy; and what sympathy does a mother exercise who sends her babe to a nurse, and only takes it from a nurse to send it to a school?” (RW)

“...if both father and mother are content to transfer the charge to hirelings; for they who do their duty by proxy should not murmur if they miss the reward of duty—parental affection produces filial duty.” (RW)

“...to submit to reason is to submit to the nature of things, and to that God, who formed them so, to promote our real interest.” (RW)

“I have before had occasion to observe, that a right always includes a duty, and I think it may, likewise, fairly be inferred, that they forfeit the right, who do not fulfil the duty.” (RW)

“The little respect which the male world pay to chastity is, I am persuaded, the grand source of many of the physical and moral evils that torment mankind, as well as of the vices and follies that degrade and destroy women…” (RW)

“The little attention paid to the cultivation of modesty, amongst men, produces great depravity in all the relationships of society; for, not only love—love that ought to purify the heart, and first call forth all the youthful powers, to prepare the man to discharge the benevolent duties of life, is sacrificed to premature lust; but, all the social affections are deadened by the selfish gratifications, which very early pollute the mind, and dry up the generous juices of the heart.” (RW)

“...marriage will never be held sacred till women, by being brought up with men, are prepared to be their companions rather than their mistresses…” (RW)

“...virtue will never prevail in society till the virtues of both sexes are founded on reason; and, till the affections common to both are allowed to gain their due strength by the discharge of mutual duties.” (RW)

“It is the want of domestic taste, and not the acquirement of knowledge, that takes women out of their families, and tears the smiling babe from the breast that ought to afford it nourishment.” (RW)

“Society can only be happy and free in proportion as it is virtuous; but the present distinctions, established in society, corrode all private, and blast all public virtue.” (RW)

“An active mind embraces the whole circle of its duties, and finds time enough for all. It is not, I assert, a bold attempt to emulate masculine virtues; it is not the enchantment of literary pursuits, or the steady investigation of scientific subjects, that lead women astray from duty. No, it is indolence and vanity—the love of pleasure and the love of sway, that will rain paramount in an empty mind.” (RW)

“...women cannot be confined to merely domestic pursuits, for they will not fulfil family duties, unless their minds take a wider range, and whilst they are kept in ignorance they become in the same proportion the slaves of pleasure as they are the slaves of man. Nor can they be shut out of great enterprises…” (RW)

“...reason and experience convince me that the only method of leading women to fulfil their peculiar duties, is to free them from all restraint by allowing them to participate the inherent rights of mankind.” (RW)

“Make them free, and they will quickly become wise and virtuous, as men become more so; for the improvement must be mutual, or the injustice which one half of the human race are obliged to submit to, retorting on their oppressors, the virtue of man will be worm-eaten by the insect whom he keeps under his feet.” (RW)

“Do you believe that there is but one God, and that he is powerful, wise, and good?

Do you believe that all things were created by him, and that all beings are dependent on him?

Do you rely on his wisdom, so conspicuous in his works, and in your own frame, and are you convinced that he has ordered all things which do not come under the cognizance of your senses, in the same perfect harmony, to fulfil his designs?” (RW)

“Do you acknowledge that the power of looking into futurity, and seeing things that are not, as if they were, is an attribute of the Creator?” (RW)

“...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.” (RW)

“...the modesty of women, characterized as such, will often be only the artful veil of wantonness, instead of being the natural reflection of purity, till modesty be universally respected.” (RW)

“...rights and duties are inseparable.” (RW)

*The development of this page is in process, more to come.

Last updated 10/3/23