Mary Astell Quotes & Sayings

“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.”

“The design of Rhetoric is to remove those Prejudices that lie in the way of Truth, to Reduce the Passions to the Government of Reasons; to place our Subject in a Right Light, and excite our Hearers to a due consideration of it.”

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

“Your glass will not do you half so much service as a serious reflection on your own minds.”

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

“But, alas! what poor Woman is ever taught that she should have a higher Design than to get her a Husband?”

“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 Relation we bear to the Wisdom of the Father, the Son of His Love, gives us indeed a dignity which otherwise we have no pretence to. It makes us something, something considerable even in God's Eyes.”

“Unhappy is that Grandeur which makes us too great to be good; and that Wit which sets us at a distance from true Wisdom.”