Top 35 Mary Astell Quotes (2025 Update)

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

— Mary Astell

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

— Mary Astell

3. “Women are not so well united as to form an Insurrection. They are for the most part wise enough to love their Chains, and to discern how becomingly they fit.”

— Mary Astell

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

— Mary Astell

5. “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.”

— Mary Astell

6. “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.”

— Mary Astell

7. “We must Think what we Say, and Mean what we Profess.”

— Mary Astell

8. “Certain I am, that Christian Religion does no where allow Rebellion.”

— Mary Astell

9. “If absolute sovereignty be not necessary in a State, how comes it to be so in a family?”

— Mary Astell

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

— Mary Astell

11. “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...”

— Mary Astell

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

— Mary Astell

13. “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.”

— Mary Astell

14. “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?”

— Mary Astell

15. “If a Woman can neither Love nor Honour, she does ill in promising to Obey.”

— Mary Astell

16. “We ought as much as we can to endeavour the Perfecting of our Beings, and that we be as happy as possibly we may.”

— Mary Astell

17. “Marry for Love, an Heroick Action, which makes a mighty noise in the World, partly because of its rarity, and partly in regard of its extravagancy.”

— Mary Astell

18. “Although it has been said by men of more wit than wisdom, and perhaps more malice than either, that women are naturally incapable of acting prudently, or that they are necessarily determined to folly, I must by no means grant it.”

— Mary Astell

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

— Mary Astell

20. “Nor can the Apostle mean that Eve only sinned; or that she only was Deceived, for if Adam sinned willfully and knowingly, he became the greater Transgressor.”

— Mary Astell

21. “We may not commit a lesser Sin under pretence to avoid a greater, but we may, nay we ought to endure the greatest Pain and Grief rather than commit the least Sin.”

— Mary Astell

22. “God is His own Design and End, and that there is no other Worthy of Him.”

— Mary Astell

23. “Every Body has so good an Opinion of their own Understanding as to think their own way the best.”

— Mary Astell

24. “It is not the Head but the Heart that is the Seat of Atheism.”

— Mary Astell

25. “The scum of the People are most Tyrannical when they get the Power, and treat their Betters with the greatest Insolence.”

— Mary Astell

26. “Tis very great pity that they who are so apt to over-rate themselves in smaller matters, shou’d, where it most concerns them to know, and stand upon their Value, be so insensible of their own worth.”

— Mary Astell

27. “If none were to Marry, but Men of strict Vertue and Honour, I doubt the World would be but thinly peopled.”

— Mary Astell

28. “None of us whether Men or Women but have so good an Opinion of our own Conduct as to believe we are fit, if not to direct others, at least to govern our selves.”

— Mary Astell

29. “That Man indeed can never be good at heart, who is full of himself and his own Endowments.”

— Mary Astell

30. “For certainly there cannot be a higher pleasure than to think that we love and are beloved by the most amiable and best Being.”

— Mary Astell

31. “That which has not a real excellency and value in it self, entertains no longer than the giddy Humour which recommended it to us holds.”

— Mary Astell

32. “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.”

— Mary Astell

33. “Whilst our Hearts are violently set upon any thing, there is no convincing us that we shall ever be of another Mind.”

— Mary Astell

34. “The Soul debases her self, when she sets her affections on any thing but her creator.”

— Mary Astell

35. “Women are from their very infancy debarred those Advantages with the want of which they are afterwards reproached.”

— Mary Astell

36. “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.”

— Mary Astell