WOMEN QUOTES XIX

quotations about women

We still think of a powerful man as a born leader and a powerful woman as an anomaly.

MARGARET ATWOOD

The Advertiser, September 9, 2004

Tags: Margaret Atwood


If you cannot inspire a woman with love of you, fill her above the brim with love of herself;--all that runs over will be yours.

CHARLES CALEB COLTON

Lacon


It is usual for a woman, even though she may ardently desire to give herself to a man, to feign reluctance, to simulate alarm or indignation. She must be brought to consent by urgent pleading, by lies, adjurations, and promises. I know that only professional prostitutes are accustomed to answer such an invitation with a perfectly frank assent -- prostitutes, or simple-minded, immature girls.

STEFAN ZWEIG

Letter from an Unknown Woman

Tags: Stefan Zweig


Women are slaves to their beauty.

DORIS LESSING

Shikasta

Tags: Doris Lessing


As such portraits as we have are almost invariably of the male sex, who strut more prominently across the stage, it seems worthwhile to take as a model one of those many women who cluster in the shade. For a study of history and biography convinces any right minded person that these obscure figures occupy a place not unlike that of the showman's hand in the dance of the marionettes; and the finger is laid upon the heart.

VIRGINIA WOOLF

"Phyllis and Rosamond", The Complete Shorter Fiction of Virginia Woolf

Tags: Virginia Woolf


A woman well bred and well taught, furnished with the additional accomplishments of knowledge and behaviour, is a creature without comparison. Her society is the emblem of sublimer enjoyments, her person is angelic, and her conversation heavenly. She is all softness and sweetness, peace, love, wit, and delight. She is every way suitable to the sublimest wish, and the man that has such a one to his portion, has nothing to do but to rejoice in her, and be thankful.

DANIEL DEFOE

The Education of Women

Tags: Daniel Defoe


A woman's heart is much like the moon, always changing but always has a man in it.

GRENVILLE KLEISER

Dictionary of Proverbs

Tags: Grenville Kleiser


The change needed to restore good feeling cannot be reached by remanding women to the spinning wheel, and the contentment of her grandmother, but by conceding to her every right which the spirit of the age demands. Modern invention has banished the spinning wheel, and the same law of progress makes the woman of today a different woman from her grandmother.

SUSAN B. ANTHONY

introduction, History of Woman Suffrage


It took him a moment to respond to the unguarded sweetness of her smile, her body calculated to a millimeter to suggest a bud yet guarantee a flower.

F. SCOTT FITZGERALD

Tender Is the Night


As God is my witness, the more I deal with women, the more I like my cat.

P. N. ELROD

The Dark Sleep

Tags: P. N. Elrod


The societies to which I have been exposed seemed to me largely machines for the suppression of women.

CORMAC MCCARTHY

All the Pretty Horses


Where neither love nor hatred is in the game, a woman's game is mediocre.

FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE

Beyond Good and Evil

Tags: Friedrich Nietzsche


An artful or false woman shall set thy pillow with thorns.

MARTIN FARQUHAR TUPPER

Proverbial Philosophy

Tags: Martin Farquhar Tupper


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

Tags: Harriet Lerner


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


Women are like that they don't acquire knowledge of people we are for that they are just born with a practical fertility of suspicion that makes a crop every so often and usually right they have an affinity for evil for supplying whatever the evil lacks in itself for drawing it about them instinctively as you do bed-clothing in slumber fertilizing the mind for it until the evil has served its purpose whether it ever existed or no.

WILLIAM FAULKNER

The Sound and the Fury

Tags: William Faulkner


Does the imagination dwell the most
Upon a woman won or woman lost?

WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

"The Tower", The Tower

Tags: William Butler Yeats


Those philosophers who believe in the absolute logic of truth have never had to discuss it on close terms with a woman.

CESARE PAVESE

This Business of Living, February 19, 1937


There is nothing in the female sex more graceful or becoming than Modesty. It adds charm to their beauty, and gives a new softness to their sex. Without it simplicity and innocence appear rude; reading and good sense, masculine; wit and humour, lascivious. This is so necessary a quality for pleasing, that the loose part of the sex, whose study it is to ensnare men's hearts, never fail to support the appearance of what they know is essential to that end.

WELLINS CALCOTT

Thoughts Moral and Divine

Tags: Wellins Calcott


The mere idea of marriage, as a strong possibility, if not always nowadays a reasonable likelihood, existing to weaken the will by distracting its straight aim in the life of practically every young girl, is the simple secret of their confessed inferiority in men's pursuits and professions today.

WILLIAM BOLITHO

Twelve Against the Gods

Tags: William Bolitho