Women

"O woman! lovely woman! Nature made thee To temper man: we had been brutes without you; Angels are painted fair, to look like you: There's in you all that we believe of Heaven, Amazing brightness, purity, and truth, Eternal joy, and everlasting love."

"Spectatum veniunt, veniunt spectentur ut ipsae."

"What mighty ills have not been done by woman! Who was't betray'd the Capitol? A woman; Who lost Mark Antony the world? A woman; Who was the cause of a long ten years' war, And laid at last old Troy in ashes? Woman; Destructive, damnable, deceitful woman!"

"Nature, I say, doth paint them forth to be weak, frail, impatient, feeble and foolish; and experience hath declared them to be unconstant, variable, cruel and lacking the spirit of counsel and regiment. And these notable faults have men in all ages espied in that kind, for the which not only they have removed women from rule and authority, but also some have thought that men subject to the counsel or empire of their wives were unworthy of all public office."

"Who can describe Women's hypocrisies! their subtle wiles, Betraying smiles, feign'd tears, inconstancies! Their painted outsides, and corrupted minds, The sum of all their follies, and their falsehoods."

"Nocte latent mendae, vitioque ignoscitur omni, Horaque formosam quamlibet illa facit."

"If we take a survey of ages and of countries, we shall find the women, almost—without exception—at all times and in all places, adored and oppressed. Man, who has never neglected an opportunity of exerting his power, in paying homage to their beauty, has always availed himself of their weakness. He has been at once their tyrant and their slave."

"Amo, amas, I love a lass, As a cedar tall and slender; Sweet cowslip's grace Is her nom'native case, And she's of the feminine gender."

"Myriad are the phantasies That trouble the still dreams of maidenhood, And wonderful the radiant entities Shaped in the passion of her brain and blood. O Fancy! through the realm of guesses fly, Unlock the rich abstraction of her heart (Her soul is second in the mystery): Trail thy gold meshes through the summer sky; Question her tender breathings as they part, Tell me, Revealer, that she thinks of me."

"Who trusts himself to women, or to waves, Should never hazard what he fears to lose."

"Pinge, precor, pictor, tali candore puellam, Qualem pinxit Amor, qualem meus ignis anhelat. Nil pingendo neges; tegat omnia Serica vestis, Quae totum prodat tenui velamine corpus. Te quoque pulset amor, crucient pigmenta medullas: Si bonus es pictor, miseri suspiria pinge."

"Oh, God, who does not exist, you hate women, otherwise you'd have made them different. And Jesus, who snubbed your mother, you hate them more."

"(Nam) corporea pulchritudo in pelle solummodo constat. Nam si viderent homines hoc quod subtus pellem est, sicut lynces in Boetia cernere interiora feruntur, mulieres videre nausearent. Iste decor in flegmate, et sanguine, et humore, ac felle, consistit. Si quis enim considerat quae intra nares, et quae intra fauces, et quae intra ventrem lateant, sordes utique reperiet. Et si nec extremis digitis flegma vel stercus tangere patimur, quomodo ipsum stercoris saccum amplecti desideramus?"

"Woman Is the Nigger of the World"

"I am convinced that our daughters can contribute just as much to society as our sons. Our common prosperity will be advanced by allowing all humanity – men and women – to reach their full potential."

"You came not in the world without our pain, Make that a bar against your cruelty; Your fault being greater, why should you disdain Our being your equals, free from tyranny?"

"Today, women make up about half our workforce, but they still make 77 cents for every dollar a man earns. That is wrong, and in 2014, it's an embarrassment. Women deserve equal pay for equal work."

"From a corrupt and venomed fountain can spring no wholesome water."

"To promote a woman to bear rule, superiority, dominion or empire above any realm, nation or city is repugnant to nature, contumely to God, a thing most contrarious to his reveled will and approved ordinance, and finally it is the subversion of good order, of all equity and justice."

"L'homme jouit du bonheur qu'il ressent, et la femme de celui qu'elle procure. Cette différence, si essentielle et si peu remarquée, influe pourtant, d'une manière bien sensible, sur la totalité de leur conduite respective. Le plaisir de l'un est de satisfaire des désirs, celui de l’autre est surtout de les faire naître."

"She was a fine dashing woman, and without being either pretty or beautiful she gave the impression of being both, mostly from the splendid way she carried her head."

"Everything takes a different flavour when a woman does it."

"Zeus, in place of fire, bestowed another fire, woman. Would that neither woman nor fire had come into being! Fire, it is true, is soon put out, but woman is a fire unquenchable, flaming, ever alight."

"Affections are as thoughts to her, the measure of her hours; Her feelings have the fragrancy, the freshness, of young flowers; And lonely passions, changing oft, so fill her, she appears The image of themselves by turns,—the idol of past years!"

"A saint does not look at women with the eye of desire; if he comes near a woman, he sees the Divine Mother in her and worships her."

"Supposing truth is a woman—what then? Are there not grounds for the suspicion that all philosophers, insofar as they were dogmatists, have been very inexpert about women? That the gruesome seriousness, the clumsy obtrusiveness with which they have usually approached truth so far have been awkward and very improper methods for winning a woman's heart? What is certain is that she has not allowed herself to be won."

"Du gehst zu Frauen? Vergiss die Peitsche nicht!"

"Women want to become independent. To this end they are beginning to enlighten men about "women as such." This is one of the worst aspects of progress in the general uglification of Europe."

"Man is for woman, a means: the purpose is always the child. But what is woman for man? Two different things wanteth the true man: danger and diversion. Therefore wanteth he woman, as the most dangerous plaything."

"The happiness of man is: I will. The happiness of woman is: he wills."

"Man shall be trained for war, and woman for the recreation of the warrior: all else is folly."

"In no age has the weaker sex been treated with as much respect by men as in ours: that belongs to the democratic inclination and basic taste, just like disrespectfulness for old age."

"So I wonder a woman, the Mistress of Hearts, Should ascend to aspire to be Master of Arts; A Ministering Angel in Woman we see, And an Angel need cover no other Degree. —O why should a Woman not get a Degree?"

"Women would rather be right than reasonable."

"... ut nemo nisi caecus omnino non videat Deum ipsum quicquid pulchritudinis capax est mundus universus in mulierem simul congessisse, ut ob id illam omnis creatura stupescat, et multis nominibus amet ac veneretur."

"A girl whose cheeks are covered with paint Has an advantage with me over one whose ain't."

"What is a woman that you forsake her, And the hearth-fire and the home-acre, To go with the old grey Widow-maker?"

"Sure, deck your lower limbs in pants; Yours are the limbs, my sweeting. You look divine as you advance— Have you seen yourself retreating?"

"One way to a girl's mind is through her cunt."

"Wherever the industrial spirit has triumphed over the military and aristocratic spirit, woman now aspires to the economic and legal self-reliance of a clerk."

"Desubito famam tollunt si quam solam videre in via."

"I think being a woman is like being Irish ... Everyone says you’re important and nice, but you take second place all the same."

"Quasi pila in choro ludens datatim dat se et communem facit. Alii adnutat, alii adnictat, alium amat alium tenet. Alibi manus est occupata, alii pervellit pedem; anulum dat alii spectandum, a labris alium invoeat, cum alio cantat, at tamen alii suo dat digito litteras."

"Never shall a nation prosper that has given a woman charge of its affairs."

"O Prophet! Tell thy wives and thy daughters and the women of the believers to draw their cloaks close round them (when they go abroad). That will be better, so that they may be recognised and not annoyed."

"If they were not fundamentally evil, they would not have been born as women at all."

"A penniless lass wi' a lang pedigree."

"Men are in charge of women, because Allah hath made the one of them to excel the other, and because they spend of their property (for the support of women). So good women are the obedient, guarding in secret that which Allah hath guarded. As for those from whom ye fear rebellion, admonish them and banish them to beds apart, and scourge them. Then if they obey you, seek not a way against them."

"O ye who believe! It is not lawful for you forcibly to inherit the women (of your deceased kinsmen), nor (that) ye should put constraint upon them that ye may take away a part of that which ye have given them, unless they be guilty of flagrant lewdness. But consort with them in kindness, for if ye hate them it may happen that ye hate a thing wherein Allah hath placed much good."

"Tell the believing women to lower their gaze and be modest, and to display of their adornment only that which is apparent, and to draw their veils over their bosoms, and not to reveal their adornment save to their own husbands or fathers or husbands' fathers, or their sons or their husbands' sons, or their brothers or their brothers' sons or sisters' sons, or their women, or their slaves, or male attendants who lack vigour, or children who know naught of women's nakedness. And let them not stamp their feet so as to reveal what they hide of their adornment."