“I am persuaded that even the most spontaneous sensations are more under the direction of principle than weak people are willing to allow.”

— Mary Wollstonecraft, book Letters Written During a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark

Letter 17
Letters Written in Sweden (1796)
Context: Affection requires a firmer foundation than sympathy, and few people have a principle of action sufficiently stable to produce rectitude of feeling; for in spite of all the arguments I have heard to justify deviations from duty, I am persuaded that even the most spontaneous sensations are more under the direction of principle than weak people are willing to allow.

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Mary Wollstonecraft44

British writer and philosopher 1759–1797

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