quotations about women
Daughters of the attitude that produced them, certain women will not appeal to us without the double bed in which we find peace by their side, while others, to be caressed with a more secret intention, require leaves blown by the wind, water rippling in the dark, things as light and fleeting as they are.
MARCEL PROUST
The Guermantes Way
A woman's passion is nothing less than the sea that tosses a man's ship, and to weather the storm he must use skill and humility to ride her waves, having given up his own course and dragged down his sails, letting the sea take him where it will. For a sailor who knows that there is nothing to fear, this is the greatest adventure of life, as he lashes himself to the mast, knowing that his surrender is his strength and the chance for his redemption.
DOUGLAS CARLTON ABRAMS
The Lost Diary of Don Juan
Some women are to be captured by storm and some taken by siege; yet if there be not a traitor in her heart that shall deliver up the garrison, thou shalt not prevail over her.
GELETT BURGESS
The Maxims of Methuselah
Woman! when I behold thee flippant, vain,
Inconstant, childish, proud, and full of fancies.
JOHN KEATS
"Woman! When I Behold Thee"
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
'Of womenkind such indeed is the love,
Or the word love abused,
Under which many childish desires
And conceits are excused.
SIR WALTER RALEIGH
As Ye Came from the Holy Land
That's the nature of women ... not to love when we love them, and to love when we love them not.
MIGUEL DE CERVANTES
Don Quixote
In oranges and women courage is often mistaken for insanity.
SALLY ROBINSON
Iron Jawed Angels
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
A woman in power is hardly a routine matter. Historically, 63 of 142 nations studied by the World Economic Forum have had a female head of government or state at some point in the half-century preceding 2014. However, in nearly two-thirds of those nations a woman was in power for less than four of the 50 years. And in 11 countries (17%), a woman led for less than a year.
TARA SONENSHINE
"U.S. vs the World? Women as Top Political Leaders", The Globalist, February 10, 2016
The woman is the man's glory, and she naturally delights in the praises which are assurances that she is fulfilling her function; and she gives herself to him who succeeds in convincing her that she, of all others, is best able to discharge it for him. A woman without this kind of "vanity" is a monster.
COVENTRY PATMORE
The Rod, the Root, and the Flower
A goodlookin horse is like a goodlookin woman.... They're always more trouble than what they're worth. What a man needs is just one that will get the job done.
CORMAC MCCARTHY
All the Pretty Horses
The women are, of course, the biggest single group of oppressed people in the world and, if we are to believe the Book of Genesis, the very oldest.
CHINUA ACHEBE
Anthills of the Savannah
Somehow, everyone hates to see an unusually pretty girl get married. It is like taking a bite out of a very fine-looking peach.
EDGAR WATSON HOWE
Country Town Sayings
Women ... I mean, they are the other half of the sky, and without them there is nothing. And without us there's nothing. There's only the two together creating children, creating society.
JOHN LENNON
interview, KFRC RKO Radio, December 8, 1980
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
Let men be men -- and let women be women -- Women competing with men- does not help us -- We have better things to do -- like being mothers.
PAMELA ANDERSON
blog post, Pamela Anderson Foundation, April 4, 2017
For I cannot think that GOD Almighty ever made them [women] so delicate, so glorious creatures; and furnished them with such charms, so agreeable and so delightful to mankind; with souls capable of the same accomplishments with men: and all, to be only Stewards of our Houses, Cooks, and Slaves.
DANIEL DEFOE
The Education of Women
It is a common fate -- a woman's lot --
To waste on one the riches of her soul,
Who takes the wealth she gives him, but cannot
Repay the interest, and much less the whole.
ELLA WHEELER WILCOX
"The Common Lot"
A girl's coquetry is of the simplest, she thinks that all is said when the veil is laid aside; a woman's coquetry is endless, she shrouds herself in veil after veil, she satisfies every demand of man's vanity, the novice responds but to one.
HONORE DE BALZAC
A Woman of Thirty