quotations about women
No woman who wants something is a lady. If she is, she doesn't get it.
LAUREN BACALL
Bright Leaf
Woo her not till thou hast seen her mother, for a score of years worketh wonders.
GELETT BURGESS
The Maxims of Methuselah
I do not regard the rise of woman as a bad sign. Rather do I fancy that her traditional subordination was itself an artificial and undesirable condition based on Oriental influences. Our virile Teutonic ancestors did not think their wives unworthy to follow them into battle, or scorn to dream of winged Valkyries bearing them to Valhalla.
H. P. LOVECRAFT
letter to Clark Ashton Smith, October 28, 1934
It is the plain women who know about love; the beautiful women are too busy being fascinating.
KATHARINE HEPBURN
attributed, 20,000 Quips & Quotes
The affected modesty of most women is a decoy for the generous, the delicate, and unsuspecting; while the artful, the bold, and unfeeling either see or break through its slender disguises.
WILLIAM HAZLITT
Characteristics
Women upset everything. When you let them into your life, you find that the woman is driving at one thing and you're driving at another.
GEORGE BERNARD SHAW
Pygmalion
Content with one woman?... That is impossible. If you could, then any man can, and any man can't.
DOUGLAS CARLTON ABRAMS
The Lost Diary of Don Juan
A woman with fair opportunities, and without an absolute hump, may marry whom she likes. Only let us be thankful that the darlings are like the beasts of the field, and don't know their own power. They would overcome us entirely if they did.
WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY
Vanity Fair
There is an age old prejudice the world over to effect that women talk too much. But is this really a weakness? Could it not in fact be a strength? Recent scientific research on the human brain has revealed that women are better at verbal skills while men tend towards physical action. Psychological research has shown on the other hand that disinformation engendered by men has a far more damaging effect on its victims than feminine gossip. Surely these discoveries indicate that women have a most valuable contribution to make in situations of conflict, by leading the way to solutions based on dialogue rather than on viciousness or violence.
AUNG SAN SUU KYI
Keynote Address at NGO Forum on Women, Beijing China, August 31, 1995
In the choice of a wife, sundry men are of sundry minds. One looketh high as one that feareth no chips, saying that the oil that swimmeth on the top is the wholesomest. Another poreth in the ground, as dreading all dangers that happen in great stocks, alleging that the honey that lieth in the bottom is the sweetest.
JOHN LYLY
Euphues: The Anatomy of Wit
The most precious possession that ever comes to a man in this world is a woman's heart.
JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND
Lessons in Life
We don't really have to go out of our way as parents to teach our kids how to respect men in the same way we do women because they're already growing up in a world where men are people and women are pretty toys.
CHRISSY BOBIC
"10 Ways Millennial Feminists Are Raising Sons Who Respect Women", Romper, February 9, 2016
No woman is all good or all bad, entirely "pure" or entirely sexual, or just a mother or daughter or student or teacher or business woman or sex worker. Newsflash: It's 2017, and women can be lots of things at once. Refusing to understand this fact contributes to our culture's insistence on defining women in terms of their relationships with other people.
JULIA O'DONNELL
"Women are so much more than just sisters, mothers, wives", The Badger Herald, March 14, 2017
Beware of a woman who signeth not her name to her letters; she will bear watching, aye, she hath a past.
GELETT BURGESS
The Maxims of Methuselah
God bless them pretty women,
I wish they was mine,
Their breath is as sweet,
The dew on the vine.
BOB DYLAN
"Moonshiner"
If a woman shows too often the Medusa's head, she must not be astonished if her lover is turned into stone.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
Table-Talk
The fear of women is the beginning of knowledge.
GELETT BURGESS
The Maxims of Methuselah
Men may weary by their constancy, but women never.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
A Daughter of Eve
What man can pretend to know the riddle of a woman's mind?
MIGUEL DE CERVANTES
Don Quixote
Why couldn't I be more like other girls my age? Take Mrs. Brown's niece. She spent every waking hour sizing up this beau or that, stitching tea towels and petticoats and putting aside a little each month for a set of Spode Buttercup dishes.
KIRBY LARSON
Hattie Ever After