66 Quotes by Mary Astell

If all men are born free, how is it that all women are born slaves?

If absolute sovereignty be not necessary in a state, how comes it to be so in a family? Or if in a family why not in a state? Since no reason alleg'd for the one that will not hold more strongly than the other...If all men are born free, how is it that women are born slaves? As they must be if the being subjected to the inconstant, uncertain, unknown, arbitrary will of men, be the perfect condition of slavery?

Truth is strong, and sometime or other will prevail.

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.

Women are not so well united as to form an Insurrection. They are for the most part wise enough to love their Chains, and to discern how becomingly they fit.

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.

The Span of Life is too short to be trifled away in unconcerning and unprofitable Matters.

He who will be just, must be forc'd to acknowledge, that neither Sex are always in the right.

Upon the principles of reason, the good of many is preferable to the good of a few or of one; a lasting good is to be preferred before a temporary, the public before the private.