A Vindication of the Rights of Woman · ¶427

That the plan of life which enables us to carry some knowledge and virtue into another world, is the one best calculated to ensure content in this, cannot be denied; yet few people act according to this principle, though it be universally allowed that it admits not of dispute. Present pleasure, or present power, carry before it these sober convictions; and it is for the day, not for life, that man bargains with happiness. How few! how very few! have sufficient foresight or resolution, to endure a small evil at the moment, to avoid a greater hereafter.

Mary Wollstonecraft · Gutenberg #3420 digital edition (2021 update); underlying printed edition unspecified
Mary Wollstonecraft · Gutenberg #3420 digital edition (2021 update); underlying printed edition unspecified
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