“How can a rational being be ennobled by anything that is not obtained by its own exertions?”

— Mary Wollstonecraft , book A Vindication of the Rights of Woman

Source: A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), Ch. 3

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Sept. 11, 2024. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "How can a rational being be ennobled by anything that is not obtained by its own exertions?" by Mary Wollstonecraft?

Mary Wollstonecraft 44

British writer and philosopher 1759–1797

Related quotes

“By unnerving definition, anything that the heart has chosen for its own mysterious reasons it can always unchoose later—again, for its own mysterious reasons.”

Elizabeth Gilbert book Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage

Source: Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage

“Being an atheist is like not owning a TV – completely rational, but best kept to one's self.”

Barrett Brown (1981) American journalist, essayist and satirist

True/Slant, "The Most Bizarre E-mail I Have Ever Received" http://trueslant.com/barrettbrown/2010/06/30/the-most-bizarre-e-mail-i-have-ever-received/, 30 June 2010.

“To be considered stupid and to be told so is more painful than being called gluttonous, mendacious, violent, lascivious, lazy, cowardly: every weakness, every vice, has found its defenders, its rhetoric, its ennoblement and exaltation, but stupidity hasn’t.”

Primo Levi book Other People's Trades

"The Irritable Chess-Players"
Other People's Trades (1985)

“Kindness can become its own motive. We are made kind by being kind.”

Eric Hoffer (1898–1983) American philosopher

Section 123
The Passionate State Of Mind, and Other Aphorisms (1955)

“Not content with real sufferings, the anxious man imposes imaginary ones on himself; he is a being for whom unreality exists, must exist; otherwise where would he obtain the ration of torment his nature demands?”

Emil M. Cioran (1911–1995) Romanian philosopher and essayist

All Gall Is Divided (1952)

“The meme for blind faith secures its own perpetuation by the simple unconscious expedient of discouraging rational inquiry.”

Richard Dawkins book The Selfish Gene

Source: The Selfish Gene (1976, 1989), Ch. 11. Memes: the new replicators

“A man is a better citizen of the United States for being also a loyal citizen of his state, and of his city; for being loyal to his family, and to his profession or trade; for being loyal to his college or his lodge.... For only through the ennobling effect of its strivings can we develop the best that is in us and give to this country the full benefit of our great inheritance.”

Louis Brandeis (1856–1941) American Supreme Court Justice

The Jewish Problem And How to Solve It (1915).
Extra-judicial writings

“Rational adventure in a physical setting is becoming increasingly rarer in the world. The evolution of technology and infrastructure has altered the kind of adventures that we can have, so that people with adventurous spirits either take on risk for its own sake, or they embark on rational adventures in the mental domain.”

J. Doyne Farmer (1952) American physicist and entrepreneur (b.1952)

" The evolution of adventure in literature and life or Will there ever be a good adventure novel about an astronaut? http://tuvalu.santafe.edu/~jdf/papers/adventure4.pdf".

“To be independent of public opinion is the first formal condition of achieving anything great or rational whether in life or in science. Great achievement is assured, however, of subsequent recognition and grateful acceptance by public opinion, which in due course will make it one of its own prejudices”

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel book Elements of the Philosophy of Right

Sect. 318, as translated by T. M. Knox, (1952)
Elements of the Philosophy of Right (1820/1821)

“The heart is what is important." There is nothing more vulnerable, nothing more corruptible than the human mind; nor is there anything as powerful, steadfast and ennobling.”

Daisaku Ikeda (1928) Japanese writer

“How can a rational being be ennobled by anything that is not obtained by its own exertions?”

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Mary Wollstonecraft 44

Related quotes

Related topics