Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1797-1851) quotes

• A slavish bondage to parents cramps every faculty of the mind.
• I do not wish women to have power over men, but over themselves.
• Invention, it must be humbly admitted, does not consist in creating out of voice, but out of chaos.
• It is a farce to call any being virtuous whose virtues do not result from the exercise of it's own reason.
• It is hardly surprising that women concentrate on the way they look instead of what is in their minds since not much has been put in their minds to begin with.
• It is justice, not charity, that is wanting in the world.
• Life is obstinate and clings closest where it is most hated.
• My dreams were all my own; I accounted for them to nobody; they were my refuge when annoyed, my dearest pleasure when free.
• The agony of my feelings allowed me no respite; no incident occurred from which my rage and misery could not extract its food.