Mary Wollstonecraft

“ What a farce is life. This effigy of majesty is allowed to burn down to the socket, whilst the hapless Matilda was hurried into an untimely grave.
"As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods; They kill us for their sport." ”

“ There was little in the appearance of fallen bricks and stacks of chimneys to allure the imagination into soothing melancholy reveries; nothing to attract the eye of taste, but much to afflict the benevolent heart. The depredations of time have always something in them to employ the fancy, or lead to musing on subjects which, withdrawing the mind from objects of sense, seem to give it new dignity ”

“ At present a roof may be sufficient to shelter them from the night air; but as the season advances, the extent of the calamity will be more severely felt, I fear, though the exertions on the part of Government are very considerable. Private charity has also, no doubt, done much to alleviate the misery which obtrudes itself at every turn ”

“ On the contrary, the children are spoiled, as they usually are when left to the care of weak, indulgent mothers, who having no principle of action to regulate their feelings, become the slaves of infants, enfeebling both body and mind by false tenderness. ”

“ I had often heard the Danes, even those who had seen Paris and London, speak of Copenhagen with rapture. Certainly I have seen it in a very disadvantageous light, some of the best streets having been burnt, and the whole place thrown into confusion. Still the utmost that can, or could ever, I believe, have been said in its praise, might be comprised in a few words. The streets are open, and many of the houses large ”

“ But this kind of indolence respecting what does not immediately concern them seems to characterise the Danes. A sluggish concentration in themselves makes them so careful to preserve their property, that they will not venture on any enterprise to increase it in which there is a shadow of hazard. ”

“ As for the women, they are simply notable housewives; without accomplishments or any of the charms that adorn more advanced social life. This total ignorance may enable them to save something in their kitchens, but it is far from rendering them better parents. ”