quotations about women
Women have served all these centuries as looking-glasses possessing the magic and delicious power of reflecting the figure of man at twice its natural size.
VIRGINIA WOOLF
A Room of One's Own
Women are books, and men the readers be,
Who sometimes in those books erratas see;
Yet oft the reader's raptured with each line,
Fair print and paper, fraught with sense divine;
Tho' some, neglectful, seldom care to read,
And faithful wives no more than bibles heed.
Are women books? says Hodge, then would mine were
An Almanack, to change her every year.
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
Poor Richard's Almanack
While women once acquired relationship skills to "hook," "snare," or "catch" a husband who would provide access to economic security and social status, the position of contemporary women has not changed that radically. Much of our success still depends on our attunement to "male culture," our ability to please men, and our readiness to conform to the masculine values of our institutions.
HARRIET LERNER
The Dance of Intimacy: A Woman's Guide to Courageous Acts of Change in Key Relationships
It had always bothered Tom that women thought they could win an argument with a man simply by appealing to his baser instincts, by holding out the mere possibility of award-winning carnal knowledge. It was the gender equivalent of a preemptive nuclear strike. He thought it unfair and, quite frankly, disrespectful of the entire male population. And yet he heard himself saying, "Look, baby doll, I don't want to argue either."
DAVID BALDACCI
The Christmas Train
As the vine which has long twined its graceful foliage about the oak and been lifted by it into sunshine, will, when the hardy plant is rifted by the thunderbolt, cling round it with its caressing tendrils and bind up its shattered boughs, so is it beautifully ordered by Providence that woman, who is the mere dependent and ornament of man in his happier hours, should be his stay and solace when smitten with sudden calamity, winding herself into the rugged recesses of his nature, tenderly supporting the drooping head, and binding up the broken heart.
WASHINGTON IRVING
"The Wife", The Sketch Book
All the world's a stage, and it's a dead easy guess which sex has all the speaking parts.
ROBERT ELLIOTT GONZALES
Poems and Paragraphs
To desire to be perpetually in the society of a pretty woman until the end of one's days, is as if, because one likes good wine, one wished always to have one's mouth full of it.
ANDRÉ MAUROIS
The Silence of Colonel Bramble
It is indeed a misfortune for a woman to be without beauty, as with men the eye is the chief arbiter of qualities in the sex. Her beauty is her capital--her worth in the market matrimonial depends upon it. With her the Virtues are less reverenced when unaccompanied by the Graces. The sex understand this very well; and hence they seek mainly to make captive the eye, knowing the mind and heart will follow as a matter of course.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
Very handsome women have usually far less sensibility to compliments than their less beautiful sisters.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
You don't know a woman until you have had a letter from her.
ADA LEVERSON
Tenterhooks
Women want to be treated like -- surprise -- human beings, not machines to insert pickup lines into until sex comes out.
SUZANNAH WEISS
"10 Things Women Are Tired Of Hearing On Dates", Bustle, February 9, 2016
I think it says that women are tired of being left behind, having to wait their turn for the men.
YOLIE FLORES
"Half the candidates in L.A.'s congressional race are women: Trump was wake-up call", Los Angeles Times, April 3, 2017
Women have now marvelous means of winning their way in the world, and mind without muscle has far greater force than muscle without mind.
WALTER BAGEHOT
Physics and Politics
Man makes one journey all his living days,
Down through the realms of music and of art;
Down through the halls of fame and glorious praise;
Down through the tears and triumphs of the heart
To some sweet woman waiting some place there.
For her he builds his cities and makes war,
Seeks gold and glorious wealth to store.
EDWIN CURRAN
"The Eternal Quest"
There is one common condition for the lot of women in Western civilization and all other civilizations that we know about for certain, and that is, woman as a sex is disliked and persecuted, while as an individual she is liked, loved, and even, with reasonable luck, sometimes worshipped.
REBECCA WEST
speech to the Fabian Society, 1928
Because a woman brought death
a bright Maiden overcame it,
and so the highest blessing
in all of creation
lies in the form of a woman,
since God has become man
in a sweet and blessed Virgin.
HILDEGARD OF BINGEN
"Quia ergo femina"
To awake a woman's curiosity is to make her pliable.
WILLIAM SCOTT DOWNEY
Proverbs
The successful woman has a secret. She's learned that she owes it to herself, her children, and the world to make the contribution she was born to make. She's learned to ask for advice and help, to insist on getting paid what she's worth, and to set boundaries at work and at home so that her needs get met, not trampled. She puts her dreams at the top of her priorities list, not at the bottom. She feels great about being recognized for her accomplishments, and she's totally OK with the fact that not everyone is going to like her when she stands up to those who would discount her or put her down.
DEBRA CONDREN
Good Housekeeping, August 2010
Once a woman turns against you, forget it. They can love you, then something turns in them. They can watch you dying in a gutter, run over by a car, and they'll spit on you.
CHARLES BUKOWSKI
Women
There is no beast, no rush of fire, like woman so untamed. She calmly goes her way where even panthers would be shamed.
ARISTOPHANES
Lysistrata