Women

"Liebe machet schoene wîp."

""Woman" must ever be a woman's highest name, And honors more than "Lady," if I know right."

"It is the highest and eternal duty of women,—namely to sacrifice their lives and to seek the good of their husbands."

"Too solemn for day, too sweet for night, Come not in darkness, come not in light; But come in some twilight interim, When the gloom is soft, and the light is dim."

"She is not old, she is not young, The Woman with the Serpent's Tongue. The haggard cheek, the hungering eye, The poisoned words that wildly fly, The famished face, the fevered hand— Who slights the worthiest in the land, Sneers at the just, contemns the brave, And blackens goodness in its grave."

"I will not stand for being called a woman in my own house."

"The countess Godiva, ... longing to free the town of Coventry from the oppression of a heavy toll, ... besought her husband, that ... he would free the town from that service, and from all other heavy burdens; and when the earl sharply rebuked her for foolishly asking what was so much to his damage, and always forbade her ever more to speak to him on the subject; and while she, on the other hand, with a woman's pertinacity, never ceased to exasperate her husband on that matter, he at last made her this answer, "Mount your horse, and ride naked, before all the people, through the market of the town, from one end to the other, and on your return you shall have your request." On which Godiva replied, "But will you give me permission, if I am willing to do it?" "I will," said he. Whereupon the countess, beloved of God, loosed her hair and let down her tresses, which covered the whole of her body like a veil, and then mounting her horse and attended by two knights, she rode through the market-place, without being seen except her fair legs; and having completed the journey, she returned with gladness to her astonished husband, and obtained of him what she had asked..."

"Unequal nature, to place women’s hearts So far upon the left side."

"Natalie had left the wives and joined the women."

"Not from his head was woman took, As made her husband to o'erlook; Not from his feet, as one designed The footstool of the stronger kind; But fashioned for himself, a bride; An equal, taken from his side."

"I believe she keeps on being queenly in her own room, with the door shut."

"Mrs. Ballinger is one of the ladies who pursue Culture in bands, as though it were dangerous to meet it alone. To this end she had founded the Lunch Club, an association composed of herself and several other indomitable huntresses of erudition."

"In describing this syren, singing and smiling, coaxing and cajoling, the author, with modest pride, asks his readers all around, has he once forgotten the laws of politeness, and showed the monster's hideous tale above water? No! Those who like may peep down under waves that are pretty transparent, and see it writhing and twirling, diabolically hideous and slimy, flapping amongst bones, or curling round corpses; but above the water-line, I ask, has not everything been proper, agreeable, and decorous...?"

"Rainy and rough sets the day,— There's a heart beating for somebody; I must be up and away,— Somebody's anxious for somebody. Thrice hath she been to the gate,— Thrice hath she listen'd for somebody; 'Midst the night, stormy and late, Somebody's waiting for somebody."

"Daphne knows, with equal ease, How to vex and how to please; But the folly of her sex Makes her sole delight to vex."

"Lose no time to contradict her, Nor endeavour to convict her; Only take this rule along, Always to advise her wrong, And reprove her when she's right; She may then crow wise for spite."

"Aut amat, aut odit mulier, nihil est tertium."

"Neque fœmina, amissa pudicitia, alia abnuerit."

"One way to hold a woman is not to hold her."

"I read somewhere that their periods attract bears. The bears can smell the menstruation."

"Women are like teeth. Some tremble and never fall and some fall and never tremble."

"Airy, fairy Lilian."

"With prudes for proctors, dowagers for deans, And sweet girl-graduates in their golden hair."

"A rosebud set with little wilful thorns, And sweet as English air could make her, she."

"Queen rose of the rosebud garden of girls."

"For men at most differ as Heaven and Earth, But women, worst and best, as Heaven and Hell."

"Novi ingenium mulierum; Nolunt ubi velis, ubi nolis cupiunt ultro."

"Et Euam te esse nescis? Viuit sententia Dei super sexum istum in hoc saeculo: uiuat et reatus necesse est. Tu es diaboli ianua; tu es arboris illius resignatrix; tu es diuinae legis prima desertrix; tu es quae eum suasisti, quem diabolus aggredi non ualuit; tu imaginem Dei, hominem, tam facile elisisti; propter tuum meritum, id est mortem, etiam filius Dei mori habuit: et adornari tibi in mente est super pelliceas tuas tunicas?"

"Πάντα γυναῖκες ἴσαντι, καὶ ὡς Ζεὺς ἠγάγεθ᾽ ῞Ηρην."

"Will you look at that! Look how she moves! It's like Jell-O on springs. Must have some sort of built-in motor or something. I tell you, it's a whole different sex!"

"Women bear crosses better than men do, but they bear surprises worse."

"Somebody has said that Woman’s place is in the wrong. That's fine. What the wrong needs is a woman’s presence and a woman’s touch. She is far better equipped than men to set it right."

"Oft it may chance that old wives keep in memory word of things that once were needful for the wise to know."

"Regard the society of women as a necessary unpleasantness of social life, and avoid it as much as possible."

"A ship is sooner rigged by far, than a gentlewoman made ready."

"Men byhove to take hede of maydens: for they ben hote & tendre of complexion; smale, pliaunt and fayre of disposicion of body; shamfaste, ferdefull and mery touchynge the affeccion of the mynde. Touchinge outwarde disposicion they be well nurtured, demure and softe of speche and well ware what they say: and delycate in theyr apparell. ... Their hondes and the uttermeste party of their membres ben full subtyll and plyaunt, theyr voyce small, theyr speche easy and shorte, lyght in goynge & shorte steppes, and lyght wit and heed; they ben sone angry, and they ben mercyable and envyous, bytter, gylefull, able to lerne. ... And for a woman is more meker than a man, she wepeth soner, and is more envyousse, and more laughinge, & lovinge, and the malice of the soule is more in a woman than in a man. And she is of feble kinde, and she makith more lesynges, and is more shamefaste, & more slowe in werkynge and in mevynge than is a man."

"I don't even wait. And when you're a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. ... Grab 'em by the pussy."

"I love beautiful women, and beautiful women love me. It has to be both ways."

"God created his marvelous world in a week. A woman is a hundred worlds. With one breath, How can I become a woman in just one day? Yesterday a hussar—in spurs and sword. Today, a lace and satin angel. And tomorrow, perhaps, who knows?"

"He is a fool who thinks by force or skill To turn the current of a woman's will."

"As the kynde of women is naturally geuen to the vyce of muche bablynge there is nothyng wherein theyr womanlynesse is more honestlie garnyshed than with sylence."

"To be a woman is to have the same needs and longings as a man. We need love and we wish to give it. If only we all could accept that there is no difference between us where human values are concerned. Whatever sex. Whatever the life we have chosen to live."

"All the charity of a woman, all the good she can do, the alms she gives, comes from her feeling herself a mother. And it was with the souls of mothers that the whores asked Don Quixote if he wanted something to eat. Behold, then, how his madness converted them into maidens; for all women, when they feel themselves mothers, are turned into maidens."

"Even in the purest realm of the spirit, without the shadow of any vice, man seeks support in woman, as Francis of Assisi did in Clare."

"A slighted woman knows no bounds."

"As if a woman of education bought things because she wanted 'em."

"(Pero) en siendo mujeres, sean morenas, Sean blancas, ó no, todas son buenas."

"D'aisso's fa be femna parer Ma domna, per qu'e·lh o retrai, Car no vol so c'om deu voler, E so c'om li deveda, fai."

"Varium et mutabile semper, Femina."

"Shariputra, who is not a woman, appears in a woman's body. And the same is true of all women — though they appear in women's bodies, they are not women. Therefore the Buddha teaches that all phenomena are neither male nor female."