Date: December 1790

"The mewing babe in swaddling-clothes, who is treated like a superior being, may perchance become a gentleman; but nature must have given him uncommon faculties if, when pleasure hangs on every bough, he has sufficient fortitude either to exercise his mind or body in order to acquire personal mer...

— Wollstonecraft, Mary (1759-1797)

Date: December 1790

"The exercise of our faculties is the great end, though not the goal we had in view when we started with such eagerness."

— Wollstonecraft, Mary (1759-1797)

Date: December 1790

"The vulgar have not the power of emptying their mind of the only ideas they imbibed whilst their hands were employed; they cannot quickly turn from one kind of life to another."

— Wollstonecraft, Mary (1759-1797)

Date: December 1790

"A few fundamental truths meet the first enquiry of reason, and appear as clear to an unwarped mind, as that air and bread are necessary to enable the body to fulfil its vital functions; but the opinions which men discuss with so much heat must be simplified and brought back to first principles; ...

— Wollstonecraft, Mary (1759-1797)

Date: December 1790

"Perhaps the most improving exercise of the mind, confining the argument to the enlargement of the understanding, is the restless enquiries that hover on the boundary, or stretch over the dark abyss of uncertainty."

— Wollstonecraft, Mary (1759-1797)

Date: 1791

"These modern Sapphos are conceited creatures, / They sport their thoughts as others do their features; / These but coquette it with a different part, / And seize the head, while others charm the heart."

— Falconar, Maria (b. 1771-) and Harriet (b. 1774-)

Date: 1791

"Each vice, to minds depraved by bondage known, / With sure contagion fastens on his own."

— Barbauld, Anna Letitia [née Aikin] (1743-1825)

Date: 1791

Corruption may sicken the heart

— Barbauld, Anna Letitia [née Aikin] (1743-1825)

Date: 1791, 1806

"Oh! horrid Night! / Thou prying Monitor confest! / Whose key unlocks the human breast, / And bares each avenue to mental sight!"

— Robinson [Née Darby], Mary [Perdita] (1758-1800)

Date: 1791, 1794

"[B]ut the poor girl by thoughtless passion led astray, who, in parting with her honour, has forfeited the esteem of the very man to whom she has sacrificed every thing dear and valuable in life, feels his indifference in the fruit of her own folly, and laments her want of power to recall his los...

— Rowson, Susanna (1762-1828)