quotations about women
As a woman I have no country. As a woman I want no country. As a woman, my country is the whole world.
VIRGINIA WOOLF
Three Guineas
Women are getting more lead roles in Hollywood, which is fantastic. Bolstered by the box office success of movies like Trainwreck, The Hunger Games franchise and Star Wars: The Force Awakens, women in Hollywood have seen some small returns on their ongoing efforts at chipping away at the film industry's white, male problem. But, the numbers for diversity -- and, by extension, representation -- remain dismal. That's no surprise to anyone paying attention.
MEGAN REYNOLDS
"Study: Women Are Getting More Leads In Film, But Alas, They Are Mostly White", The Frisky, February 10, 2016
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
Women want to be treated like -- surprise -- human beings, not machines to insert pickup lines into until sex comes out.
SUZANNAH WEISS
"10 Things Women Are Tired Of Hearing On Dates", Bustle, February 9, 2016
Or light or dark, or short or tall, she sets a spring to snare them all; all's one to her--above her fan, she'd make sweet eyes at Caliban.
THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH
"Coquette"
The only way to win a wench is not to woo her; the only way to have her fast is to have her loose.
THOMAS DEKKER
Blurt, Master Constable
Women are allowed to enter the spaces of the senses, the space of the body, the spaces opened by sensations, all kinds of feelings, but women are not allowed to enter the spaces of reason to the same extent, that is to say the space of ideas, political ideas.
CARMEN BOULLOSA
Journal of Latin American Cultural Studies, Vol. 4, No. 2, 1995
What we desire is not to possess a woman, but to be the only one to possess her.
CESARE PAVESE
This Business of Living, November 13, 1938
There is such a thing as the wrong woman. She makes a man a fraction.... But the right woman! She multiplies a man.
HORACE HOLLEY
"The Genius"
When women let their hair down, it means either sexiness or craziness or death, the three by Victorian times having become virtually synonymous.
MARGARET ATWOOD
"Ophelia Has a Lot to Answer For"
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
The government runs the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, so they must know a thing or two about satisfying women.
SCOTT ADAMS
Stick to Drawing Comics, Monkey Brain!
To desire to be perpetually in the society of a pretty woman until the end of one's days, is as if, because one likes good wine, one wished always to have one's mouth full of it.
ANDRÉ MAUROIS
The Silence of Colonel Bramble
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
Because I am a woman, I must make unusual efforts to succeed. If I fail, no one will say, "She doesn't have what it takes"; They will say, "Women don't have what it takes."
CLARE BOOTHE LUCE
attributed, On Being Blonde: Wit and Wisdom from the World's Most Infamous Blondes
Hurry not a woman's favor; neither forcer her hastily to surrender to thee. For she goeth into love as she goeth into the waters at the seashore; first a hand and then a lip goeth she in by littles. She diveth not, she leapeth not from the pier; but by gentle shocks and cries of protest she entereth slowly; yet when the waters of love encompass her, then she is supported. She swimmeth in her joy; she floateth on the tide of happiness.
GELETT BURGESS
The Maxims of Methuselah
For women, forming close, cooperative relationships with other women at once poses important opportunities and possible threats--including to mate retention. To maximize the benefits and minimize the costs of same-sex social relationships, we propose that women's mate guarding is functionally flexible and that women are sensitive to both interpersonal and contextual cues indicating whether other women might be likely and effective mate poachers. Here, we assess one such cue: other women's fertility. Because ovulating (i.e., high-fertility) women are both more attractive to men and also more attracted to (desirable) men, ovulating women may be perceived to pose heightened threats to other women's romantic relationships.
JAIMIA ARONA KREMS & REBECCA NEEL
The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, January 14, 2016
Give a girl an education and introduce her properly into the world, and ten to one but she has the means of settling well, without further expense to anybody.
JANE AUSTEN
Mansfield Park
There's a lot of pressure on women to fulfill certain fantasies. They expect you to be a little bit of a tart, to flirt with all the men. A lot of women do it. But I'm not doing that. I talk with these guys about their wives and kids right away. When they say inappropriate things, I let them, because boys will be boys, but I'm not looking to participate in their conversations.
JESSICA ALBA
Marie Claire Magazine, March 2008
If women are expected to do the same work as men, we must teach them the same things.
PLATO
The Republic