WOMEN QUOTES XXI

quotations about women

The societies to which I have been exposed seemed to me largely machines for the suppression of women.

CORMAC MCCARTHY

All the Pretty Horses


You don't know a woman until you've met her in court.

NORMAN MAILER

attributed, The Book of Poisonous Quotes

Tags: Norman Mailer


Ah! What pleasure it must be to a woman to suffer for the one she loves!

HONORE DE BALZAC

Père Goriot

Tags: Honore de Balzac


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

Tags: Virginia Woolf


Or light or dark, or short or tall, she sets a spring to snare them all; all's one to her--above her fan, she'd make sweet eyes at Caliban.

THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH

"Coquette"

Tags: Thomas Bailey Aldrich


With women the best part is the discovery. There's nothing like the first time, nothing. You don't know what life is until you undress a woman the first time. A button at a time, like peeling a hot sweet potato on a winter's night.

CARLOS RUIZ ZAFON

The Shadow of the Wind

Tags: Carlos Ruiz Zafon


The marginalization of women's voices in the news media under-values their potential contributions to society, and in the processes, diminishes democracy.

CYNTHIA CARTER

"On The Internet, Women Are Still Seen And Not Heard", Vocativ, February 8, 2016


For women, forming close, cooperative relationships with other women at once poses important opportunities and possible threats--including to mate retention. To maximize the benefits and minimize the costs of same-sex social relationships, we propose that women's mate guarding is functionally flexible and that women are sensitive to both interpersonal and contextual cues indicating whether other women might be likely and effective mate poachers. Here, we assess one such cue: other women's fertility. Because ovulating (i.e., high-fertility) women are both more attractive to men and also more attracted to (desirable) men, ovulating women may be perceived to pose heightened threats to other women's romantic relationships.

JAIMIA ARONA KREMS & REBECCA NEEL

The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, January 14, 2016


Whatever may be thought of "woman's sphere," it is certain that its boundaries have been steadily enlarged; that an increased liberty, not only of secular employments and civil rights, but also of social intercourse, has been accorded to her with increasing civilization; and that, so far from losing, either in the delicacy and refinement of her own character, or in the chivalric homage paid to her by man, she has gained in both respects in the same ratio in which she has been freed from the trammels of an unnatural conventionalism, and elevated to a position of real equality with the dominant sex.

LYMAN ABBOTT

Old Testament Shadows of New Testament Truths

Tags: Lyman Abbott


Men survey women before treating them. Consequently how a woman appears to a man can determine how she will be treated.

JOHN BERGER

Ways of Seeing

Tags: John Berger


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

Tags: Washington Irving


A man in love ... is the master, so it seems, but only if his lady friend permits it! The need to interchange the roles of slave and master for the sake of the relationship is never more clearly demonstrated than in the course of an affair. Never is the complicity between victim and executioner more essential. Even chained, down on her knees, begging for mercy, it is the woman, finally, who is in command ... the all powerful slave, dragging herself along the ground at her master's heels, is now really the god. The man is only her priest, living in fear and trembling of her displeasure.

PAULINE RÉAGE

introduction, The Image

Tags: Pauline Réage


A high degree of intellectual refinement in the female is the surest pledge society can have for the improvement of the male.

CHARLES CALEB COLTON

Lacon


There is nothing in the female sex more graceful or becoming than Modesty. It adds charm to their beauty, and gives a new softness to their sex. Without it simplicity and innocence appear rude; reading and good sense, masculine; wit and humour, lascivious. This is so necessary a quality for pleasing, that the loose part of the sex, whose study it is to ensnare men's hearts, never fail to support the appearance of what they know is essential to that end.

WELLINS CALCOTT

Thoughts Moral and Divine

Tags: Wellins Calcott


If women are expected to do the same work as men, we must teach them the same things.

PLATO

The Republic

Tags: Plato


Because I am a woman, I must make unusual efforts to succeed. If I fail, no one will say, "She doesn't have what it takes"; They will say, "Women don't have what it takes."

CLARE BOOTHE LUCE

attributed, On Being Blonde: Wit and Wisdom from the World's Most Infamous Blondes

Tags: Clare Booth Luce


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


As a woman I have no country. As a woman I want no country. As a woman, my country is the whole world.

VIRGINIA WOOLF

Three Guineas


When women let their hair down, it means either sexiness or craziness or death, the three by Victorian times having become virtually synonymous.

MARGARET ATWOOD

"Ophelia Has a Lot to Answer For"

Tags: Margaret Atwood


Frailty, thy name is woman.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Hamlet

Tags: William Shakespeare