66 Quotes by Mary Astell

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

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.

Fetters of gold are still fetters, and the softest lining can never make them so easy as liberty.

A woman indeed can’t properly be said to choose, all that is allowed her, is to refuse or accept what is offered.

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.

A husband is indeed thought by both sexes so very valuable, that scarce a man who can keep himself clean and make a bow, but thinks he is good enough to pretend to any woman...

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.

Why is Slavery so much condemn’d and strove against in one Case, and so highly applauded and held so necessary and so sacred in another?

We all agree that its fit to be as Happy as we can, and we need no Instructor to teach us this Knowledge, ’tis born with us, and is inseparable from our Being, but we very much need to be Inform’d what is the true Way to Happiness.