quotations about women
Woman is the heart of humanity ... its grace, ornament, and solace.
SAMUEL SMILES
Character
No woman marries for money: they are all clever enough, before marrying a millionaire, to fall in love with him.
CESARE PAVESE
This Business of Living, April 14, 1941
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
While women once acquired relationship skills to "hook," "snare," or "catch" a husband who would provide access to economic security and social status, the position of contemporary women has not changed that radically. Much of our success still depends on our attunement to "male culture," our ability to please men, and our readiness to conform to the masculine values of our institutions.
HARRIET LERNER
The Dance of Intimacy: A Woman's Guide to Courageous Acts of Change in Key Relationships
It had always bothered Tom that women thought they could win an argument with a man simply by appealing to his baser instincts, by holding out the mere possibility of award-winning carnal knowledge. It was the gender equivalent of a preemptive nuclear strike. He thought it unfair and, quite frankly, disrespectful of the entire male population. And yet he heard himself saying, "Look, baby doll, I don't want to argue either."
DAVID BALDACCI
The Christmas Train
You don't know a woman until you've met her in court.
NORMAN MAILER
attributed, The Book of Poisonous Quotes
Women are slaves to their beauty.
DORIS LESSING
Shikasta
Women and music should never be dated.
OLIVER GOLDSMITH
She Stoops to Conquer
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
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, you overheated dipsomaniacs, never passing up a chance to wangle a drink, a great boon to bartenders but a bane to us--not to mention our crockery and our woolens!
ARISTOPHANES
Women at the Thesmophoria
Once a woman turns against you, forget it. They can love you, then something turns in them. They can watch you dying in a gutter, run over by a car, and they'll spit on you.
CHARLES BUKOWSKI
Women
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
As God is my witness, the more I deal with women, the more I like my cat.
P. N. ELROD
The Dark Sleep
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
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
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
The societies to which I have been exposed seemed to me largely machines for the suppression of women.
CORMAC MCCARTHY
All the Pretty Horses
A man who admires a fine woman, has yet not more reason to wish himself her husband, than one who admired the Hesperian fruit, would have had to wish himself the dragon that kept it.
ALEXANDER POPE
"Thoughts on Various Subjects"
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"