Quote by Marie de Gournay: “Freedom is the first good, and the only one.”

Gournay emphatically states that freedom is the most fundamental and singular virtue, suggesting that all other positive aspects of life stem from it. This highlights her strong advocacy for individual liberty, particularly the intellectual freedom of women.

Living in a pre-Enlightenment era, Marie de Gournay articulated radical ideas about personal and intellectual liberty. Her advocacy for freedom underpinned her arguments for women's equality, seeing it as essential for human flourishing.

French writer and editor born in 1565, one of the earliest feminist thinkers of the European Renaissance. She was Montaigne's adopted daughter and literary executor, producing authoritative editions of his Essais. Her own treatises, including The Equality of Men and Women, argued for women's intellectual and spiritual equality on philosophical grounds.