quotations about women
Modesty is the richest ornament of a woman ... the want of it is her greatest deformity.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON
Notice: Undefined variable: id in /hermes/walnacweb03/walnacweb03ak/b2149/pow.notablequote/htdocs/w/includes/quoter_subj.php on line 37
Lacon
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
In the choice of a wife, we ought to make use of our ears, and not our eyes.
WELLINS CALCOTT
Thoughts Moral and Divine
If you tell anything to a woman ... it's like putting it in the papers.
IVAN KLIMA
Waiting for the Dark, Waiting for the Light
The much-quoted immaculate conception of the Virgin Mary occurred but once so that the world might know that Almighty God, when He so chooses, has no need of men, though He cannot dispense with women.
JOSÉ SARAMAGO
Baltasar and Blimunda
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
Women are books, and men the readers be,
Who sometimes in those books erratas see;
Yet oft the reader's raptured with each line,
Fair print and paper, fraught with sense divine;
Tho' some, neglectful, seldom care to read,
And faithful wives no more than bibles heed.
Are women books? says Hodge, then would mine were
An Almanack, to change her every year.
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
Poor Richard's Almanack
Frailty, thy name is woman.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Hamlet
There are women who never had an intrigue; but there are scarce any who never had but one.
FRANÇOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD
Moral Maxims
As a woman, I have an inherent need to be all things to all people, to make certain everybody's taken care of. I know I can't sustain that level all the time, so I'm finding the proper balance and it's made me infinitely happier.
SARAH JESSICA PARKER
Woman's Day Magazine, September 12, 2007
Women themselves condition their daughters to serve the system of male primacy. If a daughter challenges it, the mother will generally defend the system rather than her daughter. These mothers, victims themselves, have unwittingly become wounded wounders. Women need to attack culture's oppression of women, for there truly is a godlike socializing power that induces women to "buy in" or collude, but we also need to confront our own part in accepting male dominance and take responsibility where appropriate.
SUE MONK KIDD
The Dance of the Dissident Daughter
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
I have often felt that I would find it more complicated, troublesome and unpleasant to ascertain the feelings by which a woman lives than to plumb the innermost thoughts of an earthworm.
OSAMU DAZAI
No Longer Human
Woman, thou art a river, deep and wide,
Of waters soft and sweet:
Alas! I've never reached the other side;
Though oft I've wet my feet!
WILLIAM BATCHELDER GREENE
"Epigram", Imogen and Other Poems
Woman learns to hate to the extent to which her charms decrease.
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE
Beyond Good and Evil
But to proceed; as in order and place, so also in matter of her Creation, Woman far excells Man. things receive their value from the matter they are made of, and the excellent skill of their maker: Pots of common clay must not contend with China-dishes, nor pewter utensils vye dignity with those of silver.... Woman was not composed of any inanimate or vile dirt, but of a more refined and purified substance, enlivened and actuated by a Rational Soul, whose operations speak it a beam, or bright ray of Divinity.
HEINRICH CORNELIUS AGRIPPA
Female Pre-eminence, or, The Dignty and Excellency of that Sex above the Male
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
It's a strange thing to think of a man as can lift a chair with his teeth, and walk fifty mile on end, trembling and turning hot and cold at only a look from one woman out of all the rest i' the world. It's a mystery we can give no account of.
GEORGE ELIOT
Adam Bede
Woman began at zero, and has through ages slowly unfolded and risen. Each age has protested against growth as unsexing woman.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
Man makes one journey all his living days,
Down through the realms of music and of art;
Down through the halls of fame and glorious praise;
Down through the tears and triumphs of the heart
To some sweet woman waiting some place there.
For her he builds his cities and makes war,
Seeks gold and glorious wealth to store.
EDWIN CURRAN
"The Eternal Quest"