Love & Passion Quote by Margaret Cavendish

A duke's title, a court appointment, a flattering sonnet: Cavendish is telling her readers to stop mistaking the packaging for the product. In a 17th-century culture where a woman's prospects were policed by rank, marriage, and reputation - and where "words" often meant both empty praise and the sanctioned language men used to define women - she makes a bracingly modern wager: advancement should be earned, not granted, and certainly not performed.

The line is canny in its double address. On the surface, it's moral self-help for "our sex", urging women to "consider and... ponder" rather than chase status. Underneath, it's a critique of the system that forces women to play the game of place and words in the first place. Cavendish can't simply demand equal access to education, institutions, or public authority without inviting backlash. So she frames her challenge as rational, almost managerial: if women adopt the discipline of merit, the fraud of inherited privilege becomes visible.

"Words" carries extra charge coming from a writer. Cavendish knew language could be weapon and lifeline; she published under her own name, drawing ridicule for it. By downgrading "words" as a route to advancement, she isn't disowning rhetoric - she's separating substance from the social theater of eloquence, gossip, and credentialed talk. "Worth and merit" becomes both aspiration and indictment: a standard that exposes how rarely the world actually rewards women for either.