WOMEN QUOTES XX

quotations about women

Let men tremble to win the hand of woman, unless they win along with it the utmost passion of her heart.

NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

The Scarlet Letter

Tags: Nathaniel Hawthorne


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 necessarily capable of almost anything in their struggle for survival and can scarcely be convicted of such manmade crimes as "cruelty."

F. SCOTT FITZGERALD

Tender Is the Night

Tags: F. Scott Fitzgerald


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


To sew is to pray. Men don't understand this. They see the whole but they don't see the stitches. They don't see the speech of the creator in the work of the needle. We mend. We women turn things inside out and set things right. We salvage what we can of human garments and piece the rest into blankets. Sometimes our stitches stutter and slow. Only a woman's eyes can tell. Other times, the tension in the stitches might be too tight because of tears, but only we know what emotion went into the making. Only women can hear the prayer.

LOUISE ERDRICH

Four Souls

Tags: Louise Erdrich


A woman's beauty does not belong to her alone. It is part of the bounty she brings into the world. She has a duty to share it.

J. M. COETZEE

Disgrace

Tags: J. M. Coetzee


You all know that even when women have full rights, they still remain fatally downtrodden because all housework is left to them. In most cases housework is the most unproductive, the most barbarous and the most arduous work a woman can do. It is exceptionally petty and does not include anything that would in any way promote the development of the woman.

VLADIMIR LENIN

"The Tasks of the Working Women's Movement in the Soviet Republic", Collected Works

Tags: Vladimir Lenin


Any woman may act the part of a coquette successfully who has the reputation without the scruples of modesty. If a woman passes the bounds of propriety for our sakes, and throws herself unblushingly at our heads, we conclude it is either from a sudden and violent liking, or from extraordinary merit on our parts, either of which is enough to turn any man's head who has a single spark of gallantry or vanity in his composition.

WILLIAM HAZLITT

Characteristics

Tags: William Hazlitt


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

FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE

Beyond Good and Evil

Tags: Friedrich Nietzsche


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"

Tags: Thomas Bailey Aldrich


When women express darker emotions, they are told to calm down, that their emotions are simply the result of "their time of the month," or that the emotional frustration they feel is not based in a rational (i.e., masculine) worldview. While men's emotional expression is marginalized as feminine, women's emotional expression is infantilized. It is in this repressed emotional space that the alarming sense of being gaslighted can emerge for women.

MARK GREENE

"Women Are Better At Expressing Emotions, Right? Why It's Not That Simple", Yes Magazine, January 27, 2016


The marginalization of women's voices in the news media under-values their potential contributions to society, and in the processes, diminishes democracy.

CYNTHIA CARTER

"On The Internet, Women Are Still Seen And Not Heard", Vocativ, February 8, 2016


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


Woman loves or hates: she knows no middle course.

PUBLILIUS SYRUS

The Moral Sayings of Publilius Syrus


A reproof entereth more into a woman of sense than an hundred compliments into a fool.

GELETT BURGESS

The Maxims of Methuselah


You don't know a woman until you have had a letter from her.

ADA LEVERSON

Tenterhooks

Tags: Ada Leverson


Ah! What pleasure it must be to a woman to suffer for the one she loves!

HONORE DE BALZAC

Père Goriot

Tags: Honore de Balzac


Whatever may be thought of "woman's sphere," it is certain that its boundaries have been steadily enlarged; that an increased liberty, not only of secular employments and civil rights, but also of social intercourse, has been accorded to her with increasing civilization; and that, so far from losing, either in the delicacy and refinement of her own character, or in the chivalric homage paid to her by man, she has gained in both respects in the same ratio in which she has been freed from the trammels of an unnatural conventionalism, and elevated to a position of real equality with the dominant sex.

LYMAN ABBOTT

Old Testament Shadows of New Testament Truths

Tags: Lyman Abbott


This is woman's great benevolence, that she will become a martyr for beauty, so that the world may have pleasure.

ROBERT WILSON LYND

Irish & English: Portraits and Impressions

Tags: Robert Wilson Lynd


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

Tags: William Batchelder Greene