WOMEN QUOTES XVIII

quotations about women

There is no moment that exceeds in beauty that moment when one looks at a woman and finds that she is looking at you in the same way that you are looking at her. The moment in which she bestows that look that says, "Proceed with your evil plan, sumbitch."

DONALD BARTHELME

"The Sea of Hesitation"

Tags: Donald Barthelme


When [Mike] Pence says he will not eat alone with a woman who is not his wife, he is perpetuating the patriarchal notion that women are either Mary, Jesus' pure virgin Mother, or Eve, a temptress, a liability. It perhaps is no coincidence that Pence reportedly refers to his Mary -- wife Karen Pence -- as "Mother." For Pence and many evangelical men, all women who are not Marys are Eves, placed peripherally in their lives as temptations to resist. Every Eve is one alone-meeting away from destroying a godly man. In order to protect their honor and reputation, these men cut us off completely. This reduces all women to a monolithic sexual identity. To men like Pence, we are not complex, complete, sacred vessels full of intellect and divinity and grit. We are not fully formed spiritual beings; we are not fully formed citizens. We are exclusively sexual creatures. This mistrust of women is pumped through the veins of the Christian church and, apparently, the executive branch of the United States of America.

GLENNON DOYLE MELTON

"Mike Pence's Marriage Rule Holds Women Back", Time, April 3, 2017


To emancipate woman is to refuse to confine her to the relations she bears to man, not to deny them to her; let her have her independent existence and she will continue none the less to exist for him also: mutually recognising each other as subject, each will yet remain for the other an other. The reciprocity of their relations will not do away with the miracles -- desire, possession, love, dream, adventure -- worked by the division of human beings into two separate categories; and the words that move us -- giving, conquering, uniting -- will not lose their meaning. On the contrary, when we abolish the slavery of half of humanity, together with the whole system of hypocrisy that it implies, then the 'division' of humanity will reveal its genuine significance and the human couple will find its true form.

SIMONE DE BEAUVOIR

The Second Sex

Tags: Simone de Beauvoir


The fickleness of the women I love is only equaled by the infernal constancy of the women who love me.

GEORGE BERNARD SHAW

The Philanderer

Tags: George Bernard Shaw


No man with any sense assumes that a woman's words mean to her exactly what they mean to him.

REX STOUT

The Mother Hunt


A woman well bred and well taught, furnished with the additional accomplishments of knowledge and behaviour, is a creature without comparison. Her society is the emblem of sublimer enjoyments, her person is angelic, and her conversation heavenly. She is all softness and sweetness, peace, love, wit, and delight. She is every way suitable to the sublimest wish, and the man that has such a one to his portion, has nothing to do but to rejoice in her, and be thankful.

DANIEL DEFOE

The Education of Women

Tags: Daniel Defoe


Oh! too convincing -- dangerously dear --
In woman's eye the unanswerable tear!

LORD BYRON

The Corsair

Tags: Lord Byron


The imaginative estimate or ideal conception of Woman by the Poets has always been deemed exceptionally interesting, especially by women themselves, for, as a rule, it is agreeable; and, even if the presentation be sometimes a little overcharged with glowing colour, all of us, men and women alike, are not otherwise than pleased with descriptions that portray us, not exactly as we are, but as we should like to be. Withal, a portrait, to obtain recognition, must have in it some resemblance to the original; and, speaking in the most prosaic manner, one need not hesitate to affirm that any representation of women, at least of womanly women, that was not attractive would be a travesty of the fact.

ALFRED AUSTIN

The Bridling of Pegasus

Tags: Alfred Austin


If a woman's got nothing but her fair fame to feed on, why, it's thin tack, and a donkey would die of it!

D. H. LAWRENCE

Sons and Lovers

Tags: D. H. Lawrence


There are few virtuous women who are not tired of their part.

FRANÇOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD

Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims

Tags: Francois de La Rochefoucauld


All of a sudden, in the good-natured child, the woman stood revealed, a disturbing woman with all the impulsive madness of her sex, opening the gates of the unknown world of desire. Nana was still smiling, but with the deadly smile of a man-eater.

EMILE ZOLA

Nana


If you cannot inspire a woman with love of you, fill her above the brim with love of herself;--all that runs over will be yours.

CHARLES CALEB COLTON

Lacon


Does the imagination dwell the most
Upon a woman won or woman lost?

WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

"The Tower", The Tower

Tags: William Butler Yeats


For one to admire a woman merely for her beauty, is to love the building for its exterior; but to love one for the greatness of her soul, is to appreciate the tenement for its intrinsic value.

WILLIAM SCOTT DOWNEY

Proverbs


We still think of a powerful man as a born leader and a powerful woman as an anomaly.

MARGARET ATWOOD

The Advertiser, September 9, 2004

Tags: Margaret Atwood


Grab a woman. Help the movement. Liberate a woman tonight. You'll get stale out here in the woods, living like a bear. Your balls will shrink, your tongue grow stiff and heavy. Your mind will wither away. Whatever became of William Gatlin? Went mad flogging his bloody duff.

EDWARD ABBEY

The Serpents of Paradise

Tags: Edward Abbey


It has been our experience that women usually prefer thin, undernourished, flatchested females, dressed to the teeth, as a concept of "feminine beauty" -- and that men prefer exactly the opposite: voluptuous, well-rounded and undressed. The women's idealization of woman is actually a male counterpart, competing with man in society; man's view of women is far more truly feminine.

HUGH HEFNER

The Realist, May, 1961

Tags: Hugh Hefner


These little women are very important, and those that appear to be the humblest, often assume great authority in their homes.

GASTON BACHELARD

The Poetics of Space

Tags: Gaston Bachelard


Women are slaves to their beauty.

DORIS LESSING

Shikasta

Tags: Doris Lessing


If you want to stay single, look for a perfect woman.

KEN ALSTAD

Savvy Sayin's

Tags: Ken Alstad