Quotes by 18th-century Women

Jane Austen

Catherine the Great

Marie Antoinette

Mary Wollstonecraft

Anne Louise Germaine de Staël

Madame de Pompadour

Abigail Adams

Courage! I have shown it for years; think you I shall lose it at the moment when my sufferings are to end?

To the priest who had accompanied her to the foot of the guillotine, who had whispered, "This is the moment, Madame, to arm yourself with courage."

Marie Antoinette

Five minutes! Zounds! I have been five minutes too late all my life-time!

A persuadable temper might sometimes be as much in favour of happiness as a very resolute character.

The political Liberty of a Citizen is the Peace of Mind arising from the Consciousness, that every Individual enjoys his peculiar Safety; and in order that the People might attain this Liberty, the Laws ought to be so framed, that no one Citizen should stand in Fear of another; but that all of them should stand in Fear of the same Laws....

Catherine the Great

When I shall again write to you, or where I shall be tomorrow, I cannot tell.

Those possest of the greatest Virtues are always least pleas'd with the repetition of them...

Early rising is also essential to the good government of a family. A late breakfast deranges the whole business of the day, and throws a portion of it on the next, which opens the door for confusion to enter.

.. a dirty exterior is a great enemy to beauty of all descriptions.

Mary Martha Sherwood

Ennui is the disease of hearts without feeling, and of minds without resources.

I was amongst the virtues like the great Turk in his seraglio of women, and I chose to dwell with that virtue which looked the fairest in my eyes and gave me at that season most pleasure. In short, I made wives of them: I first admired them, then made them my own property, and if they would not submit to my will, I again turned them off and divorced them.

How happily, how happily, the flowers die away!
Oh! Could we but return to earth as easily as they.

Caroline Anne Southey

The progress of the American Revolution has been so rapid and such the alteration of manners, the blending of characters, and the new train of ideas that almost universally prevail, that the principles which animated to the noblest exertions have been nearly annihilated.

Mercy Otis Warren

Real misery delights not in reproaches and complaints. It is like charity and love - silent, long suffering and mild.

Lady Caroline Lamb

We need not be too strict in seeing
The failings of a fellow being.

The ordinary manner of spending their time, is the only way of judging of people's inclination and genius.

It is by surmounting difficulties, not by sinking under them that we discover our fortitude.

Hannah Webster Foster

The education of the present race of females is not very favorable to domestic happiness. For my own part, I call education, not that which smothers a woman with accomplishments, but that which tends to consolidate a firm and regular system of character; that which tends to form a friend, a companion, and a wife.

Far from having taken any positive step, I have not yet even fommed any resolution.

Women, rouse yourselves! The tocsin of reason resounds through the whole universe: recognize your rights. The powerful empire of nature is no longer surrounded by prejudices, fanaticism, superstition and lies.

Olympe de Gouges

The end of all things is at hand; that Satan's kingdom will be destroyed, and Satan chained down for a thousand years, and Christ's kingdom established upon earth.

Joanna Southcott

When in company with literary women, make no allusions to 'learned ladies,' or 'blue stockings,' or express surprise that they should have any knowledge of housewifery, or needle-work, or dress; or that they are able to talk on 'common things.' It is rude and foolish and shows that you really know nothing about them, either as a class or as individuals.

I have been a slave myself — I know what slaves feel — I can tell by myself what other slaves feel, and by what they have told me. The man that says slaves be quite happy in slavery — that they don't want to be free — that man is either ignorant or a lying person. I never heard a slave say so.

I shall be told, I know, that Mathematics render the attention peculiarly close (appliquee); but they do not habituate to collect, to appreciate, to concentrate; the attention they require is, so to speak, in a straight line; the human mind acts in mathematics as a spring tending in one uniform direction.

Anne Louise Germaine de Staël

Let us, my dear contemporaries, arise above such narrow prejudices. If wisdom be desirable on its own account, if virtue, to deserve the name, must be founded on knowledge, let us endeavour to strengthen our minds by reflection till our heads become a balance for our hearts...

Mary Wollstonecraft

A Universalist, your heart cannot but dilate, and your affections widen, until the divine expansion, like the ambient atmosphere, embraces every form, which is acted upon by an immortal spirit.

Judith Sargent Murray