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 Informd what is the true Way to Happiness. – Mary Astell
Ignorance and a narrow education lay the foundation of vice, and imitation and custom rear it up. – Mary Astell
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. – Mary Astell
Hitherto I have courted Truth with a kind of Romantick Passion, in spite of all Difficulties and Discouragements: for knowledge is thought so unnecessary an Accomplishment for a Woman, that few will give themselves the Trouble to assist us in the Attainment of it. – Mary Astell