quotations about women
Women are supposed to be very calm generally: but women feel just as men feel; they need exercise for their faculties, and a field for their efforts as much as their brothers do; they suffer from too rigid a restraint, too absolute a stagnation, precisely as men would suffer; and it is narrow-minded in their more privileged fellow-creatures to say that they ought to confine themselves to making puddings and knitting stockings, to playing on the piano and embroidering bags.
CHARLOTTE BRONTË
Jane Eyre
The problem with life is, by the time you can read women like a book, your library card has expired.
MILTON BERLE
attributed, quotefancy
People might not agree with me, but I think a woman should have a feminine shape, something you can get your hands on. You, on the other hand, look like you might be partial to the skinny type, a point of view I fully respect, don't misunderstand me.
CARLOS RUIZ ZAFON
The Shadow of the Wind
If a woman is successful, she'd better duck, because they'll be out to get her.
LEONA HELMSLEY
Playboy, November 1990
Under his forming hands a creature grew,
Man-like, but different sex; so lovely fair
That what seemed fair in all the world, seemed now
Mean, or in her summed up, in her contained,
And in her looks; which from that time infus'd
Sweetness into my heart, unfelt before,
And into all things from her air inspir'd
The spirit of love and amorous delight.
She disappear'd, and left me dark; I wak'd
To find her, or for her ever to deplore
Her loss, and other pleasures abjure:
When out of hope, behold her, not far off,
Such as I saw her in my dream, adorn'd
With what all Earth or Heaven could bestow
To make her amiable: On she came,
Led by her Heavenly Maker, though unseen,
And guided by his voice; nor uninform'd
Of nuptial sanctity, and marriage rites:
Grace was in her steps, heaven in her eye,
In every gesture dignity and love.
JOHN MILTON
Paradise Lost
Seek one woman whom thou canst trust, and to her who lovest thee best, tell thy secrets. She will deliver thee from the hands of strange women, she will expose their craft; and of her who flattereth thee, will she make known the reason.
GELETT BURGESS
The Maxims of Methuselah
As to the pretty girls who went past, from the day on which I had first known that their cheeks could be kissed, I had become curious about their souls. And the Universe had appeared to me more interesting.
MARCEL PROUST
Within a Budding Grove
Take my advice. Make love to every pretty woman you meet. And remember, if you get 5 per cent on your outlay it's a good return.
ARNOLD BENNETT
diary, May 24, 1904
Women are raised to be "Type A's"; they are perfectionists who make all their roles priorities. And then we further stress ourselves by overscheduling and refusing to drop old roles simply because we've picked up new ones. If you work outside the house, you still come home and are in charge of dinner and the children and the social life and the laundry.... Typically, a woman won't rest until the whole world can see that she is exhausted, until everyone else gives her permission to stop. What a woman has to do is give herself that permission.
GEORGIA WITKIN-LANOIL
The Courier, September 16, 1984
Woman is a delightful instrument of pleasure, but it is necessary to know its trembling strings, to study the position of them, the timid keyboard, the fingering so changeful and capricious which befits it.
HONORE DE BALZAC
Physiology of Marriage
Nobody knows much about women, not even Freud, not even women themselves. But it's like electricity: you don't have to know how it works to get a shock on the fingers.
CARLOS RUIZ ZAFON
The Shadow of the Wind
It is easier to make a glass tube pliable than to convince an obstinate woman she is in fault.
WILLIAM SCOTT DOWNEY
Proverbs
When one sees one of the romantic creatures before him he imagines he is looking at some holy being, so wonderful that its one breath could dissolve him in a sea of a thousand charms and delights; but if one looks into the soul -- it's nothing but a common crocodile.
ANTON CHEKHOV
The Boor
Nothing pleases a woman quite so well as to look so sweet that a man wants to kiss her, and then abuse him for his impudence.
EDGAR WATSON HOWE
Country Town Sayings
Most women, I think, though they may complain a little about this, would agree that meeting the needs of others is not a real burden; it is what makes life worth living. It is probably the deepest satisfaction a woman has.
ELEANOR ROOSEVELT
You Learn by Living
Another writer asserts that the tyranny of man over woman has its roots, after all, in his nobler feelings; his love, his chivalry, and his desire to protect woman in the barbarous periods of pillage, lust, and war. But wherever the roots may be traced, the results at this hour are equally disastrous to woman. Her best interests and happiness do not seem to have been consulted in the arrangements made for her protection. She has been bought and sold, caressed and crucified at the will and pleasure of her master.
SUSAN B. ANTHONY
introduction, History of Woman Suffrage
The domestic career is no more natural to all women than the military career is natural to all men.
GEORGE BERNARD SHAW
The Quintessence of Ibsenism
It seems to me that women are freed from their responsibilities only when they are merry widows or eccentric old spinsters.
TOBSHA LEARNER
Soul
Woman is prone by nature to jealousy, and brooks not a rival in the nuptial bed.
EURIPIDES
attributed, Day's Collacon
Men are forever eager to press drink upon those they consider their superiors, hoping thereby to eliminate that distinction between them.... And women, when confronted by superiors, substitute for drink the crippling liquor of their sex.
KEN KESEY
Sometimes a Great Notion