quotations about women
'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
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
A woman is essentially a vessel made to be filled.
JOSÉ SARAMAGO
Baltasar and Blimunda
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
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
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
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
There are women who never had an intrigue; but there are scarce any who never had but one.
FRANÇOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD
Moral Maxims
Women are cats ... and love to scratch even those they're fond of. Sometimes the more they love them the harder they scratch.
WILLIAM JOHN LOCKE
Septimus
Women complain about premenstrual syndrome, but I think of it as the only time of the month that I can be myself.
ROSEANNE BARR
attributed, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Health Fair
Women have been called queens for a long time, but the kingdom given them isn't worth ruling.
LOUISA MAY ALCOTT
An Old-Fashioned Girl
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
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
I think it's time we women stopped carrying supplies for the entire family. If children don't have room to carry their own toys, if men don't have pockets in their pants, tougho.
ERMA BOMBECK
Forever, Erma
Modesty is the richest ornament of a woman ... the want of it is her greatest deformity.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON
Lacon
Most fashionable ladies are as diamonds because they are more costly than useful.
WILLIAM SCOTT DOWNEY
Proverbs
The finest compliment that can be paid to a woman of sense is to address her as such.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
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
Women are not for using. Women are for loving.
KEVIN LEMAN
Sex Begins in the Kitchen
He who has found a good wife has found great happiness, but a quarrelsome woman is like a roof that lets in the rain.
ANDRÉ MAUROIS
The Silence of Colonel Bramble