quotations about women
A woman cannot be herself in the society of the present day, which is an exclusively masculine society, with laws framed by men and with a judicial system that judges feminine conduct from a masculine point of view.
HENRIK IBSEN
From Ibsen's Workshop
I expect that Woman will be the last thing civilized by Man.
GEORGE MEREDITH
The Ordeal of Richard Feverel
The fear of women is the beginning of knowledge.
GELETT BURGESS
The Maxims of Methuselah
It is often asserted that as woman has always been man's slave--subject--inferior--dependent, under all forms of government and religion, slavery must be her normal condition. This might have some weight had not the vast majority of men also been enslaved for centuries to kings and popes, and orders of nobility, who, in the progress of civilization, have reached complete equality.
SUSAN B. ANTHONY
introduction, History of Woman Suffrage
Great ladies ... are like the best sauces -- it is better not to know how they are made.
OCTAVE MIRBEAU
The Diary of a Chambermaid
I call 'em complaining machines. Things are never right with a guy to them. And man, when you throw that hysteria in there ... forget it. I gotta get out, get in the car, and go. Anywhere. Get a cup of coffee somewhere. Anywhere. Anything but another woman. I guess they're just built different, right?
CHARLES BUKOWSKI
Interview Magazine, September 1987
I'm a failure as a woman. My men expect so much of me, because of the image they've made of me -- and that I've made of myself -- as a sex symbol. They expect bells to ring and whistles to whistle, but my anatomy is the same as any other woman's and I can't live up to it.
MARILYN MONROE
attributed, Marilyn, 1962
Be delicate, little wife-woman. Never be without your veil, without many veils. Veil yourself in a thousand veils, all shimmering and glittering with costly textures and precious jewels. Never let the last veil be drawn. Against the morrow array yourself with more veils, ever more veils, veils without end. Yet the many veils must not seem many. Each veil must seem the only one between you and your hungry lover who will have nothing less than all of you. Each time he must seem to get all, to tear aside the last veil that hides you. He must think so. It must not be so. Then there will be no satiety, for on the morrow he will find another last veil that has escaped him.
JACK LONDON
The Valley of the Moon
Women are not waiting around for lovers, they're living their lives. And believe it or not, having the morning to yourself is very zen.
KAITLYN WILDE
"Comic Artist Depicts Single Women They Way They Really Are -- Quite Content, Thank You Very Much", Bustle, February 9, 2016
Prejudice, in which there is truth, does cast, throughout the world but especially in France, a great stigma on the woman with whom no man has been willing to share the blessings or endure the ills of life. Now, there comes to all unmarried women a period when the world, be it right or wrong, condemns them on the fact of this contempt, this rejection. If they are ugly, the goodness of their characters ought to have compensated for their natural imperfections; if, on the contrary, they are handsome, that fact argues that their misfortune has some serious cause. It is impossible to say which of the two classes is most deserving of rejection. If, on the other hand, their celibacy is deliberate, if it proceeds from a desire for independence, neither men nor mothers will forgive their disloyalty to womanly devotion, evidenced in their refusal to feed those passions which render their sex so affecting. To renounce the pangs of womanhood is to abjure its poetry and cease to merit the consolations to which mothers have inalienable rights.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
The Vicar of Tours
I think women dwell quite a bit on the duress under which they work, on how hard it is just to do it at all. We are traditionally rather proud of ourselves for having slipped creative work in there between the domestic chores and obligations. I'm not sure we deserve such big A-pluses for all that.
TONI MORRISON
Newsweek, March 30, 1981
Over a lifetime of dealing with difficult women, I have learned it is often better to give into their demands immediately.
PATRICIA BRIGGS
When Demons Walk
The really clever thing, in affairs of this sort, is not to win a woman already desired by everyone, but to discover such a prize while she is still unknown.
CESARE PAVESE
This Business of Living, October 7, 1940
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
It is not extraordinary that the extraterrestrial origin of women was a recurrent theme of science fiction.
KINGSLEY AMIS
The King's English: A Guide to Modern English Usage
Sure, we can be heartless and refuse to express any sort of emotion. We can be stubborn as hell and scarily temperamental. We often refuse to admit when we're wrong, and we won't acknowledge it when we realize we are. We can be way too aggressive and abrupt. We feel the need to come off as tough, despite the fact that our hearts are made of gold. Aquarius women are a rare breed.
ELIZABETH CABALLERO
"8 Reasons Aquarius Women Are The Most Confident Partners In The Zodiac", Elite Daily, February 9, 2016
They often say woman cannot keep a secret, but every woman in the world, like every man, has a hundred secrets in her own soul which she hides from even herself. The more respectable she is, the more certain it is the secrets exist.
AUSTIN O'MALLEY
Keystones of Thought
A bride at her second marriage does not wear a veil. She wants to see what she is getting.
HELEN ROWLAND
A Guide to Men
Men are often like that. They grow bored with simple goodness and want a woman who is dangerous, a challenge.
SUSANNE ALLEYN
Game of Patience
Men can sleep with a different woman every night and indulge in the most revolting practices--but let an unmarried woman make one mistake, be led astray when she's young and silly and knows nothing of the world, and she's tainted for life and called a harlot!
SUSANNE ALLEYN
Game of Patience