"Why then should women be denied the benefits of instruction? If knowledge and understanding had been useless additions to the sex, God almighty would never have given them capacities."

"A lady is one who never shows her underwear unintentionally."

"Women are door-mats and have been,— The years those mats applaud,— They keep their men from going in With muddy feet to God."

"Qui va plus tost que la fumée, Si ce n'est la flamme allumée? Plus tost que la flamme? le vent: Plus tost que le vent? c'est la femme: Quoi plus? rien, elle va devant Le vent, la fumée et la flamme."

"In the Divorce Court women complain of losing weight. Outside the Divorce Court they complain of putting it on."

"Man is more powerful in body and mind than woman, and in the savage state he keeps her in a far more abject state of bondage, than does the male of any other animal; therefore it is not surprising that he should have gained the power of selection. Women are everywhere conscious of the value of their own beauty; and when they have the means, they take more delight in decorating themselves with all sorts of ornaments than do men. They borrow the plumes of male birds, with which nature has decked this sex in order to charm the females."

"Puella vero, quia ferrum est quod feminæ observant, magis quam Catonianam gravitatem."

"It requires a kick in the imagination, a wrenching of tired words, to realize that feminism is the final and therefore the first cause, and that this movement is movement. Realization of this is already the beginning of a qualitative leap in being. For the philosophers of senescence 'the final cause' is in technical reason; it is the Father's plan, an endless flow of Xerox copies of the past. But the final cause that is movement is in our imaginative-cerebral-emotional-active-creative being."

"[Women's Liberation] ... is an ontological, spiritual revolution, pointing beyond the idolatries of sexist society and sparking creative action in and toward transcendence. The becoming of women implies universal human becoming. It has everything to do with the search for ultimate meaning and reality which some would call God."

"Quanto in femmina fuoco d'amor dura, Se l'occhio o 'l tatto spesso nol raccende."

"An elegant woman is a woman who despises you and who has no hair under her arms."

"Woman is the most superstitious animal beneath the moon. When a woman has a premonition that Tuesday will be a disaster, to which a man pays no heed, he will very likely lose his fortune then. This is not meant to be an occult or mystic remark. The female body is a vessel, and the universe drops its secrets into her far more quickly than it communicates them to the male."

"What most men desire is a virgin who is a whore."

"Women are as inscrutable as the ocean. You never know what you have under your keel, deep water or shallow, until you have heaved the lead."

"the Cambridge ladies who live in furnished souls are unbeautiful and have comfortable minds."

"Whoe'er she be, That not impossible she, That shall command my heart and me."

"Her air, her manners, all who saw admired; Courteous though coy, and gentle, though retired: The joy of youth and health her eyes display'd, And ease of heart her every look convey'd."

"Well thou play'dst the housewife's part, And all thy threads with magic art Have wound themselves about this heart, My Mary."

"What is Woman? Only one of Nature's agreeable blunders."

"Certain women should be struck regularly, like gongs."

"Conservatives have a problem with women. For that matter, all men do."

"Certum est enim, longos esse crines omnibus sed breves sensus mulieribus."

"The sweetest noise on earth, a woman's tongue; A string which hath no discord."

"Quelle injustice aux dieux d'abandonner aux femmes Un empire si grand sur les plus belles ames, Et de se plaire à voir de si faibles vainqueurs Régner si puissamment sur les plus nobles cœurs!"

"It’s nice to meet serious people And hear them explain their views: Your concern for the rights of women Is especially welcome news. I’m sure you’d never exploit one; I expect you’d rather be dead; I’m thoroughly convinced of it— Now can we go to bed?"

"It's queer how out of touch with truth women are. They live in a world of their own, and there has never been anything like it, and never can be. It is too beautiful altogether, and if they were to set it up it would go to pieces before the first sunset. Some confounded fact we men have been living contentedly with ever since the day of creation would start up and knock the whole thing over."

"The worker is the slave of capitalist society, the female worker is the slave of that slave."

"There is no fury like an ex-wife searching for a new lover."

"Women are like tricks by sleight of hand, Which, to admire, we should not understand."

"Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned."

"Of all people, girls and servants are the most difficult to behave to. If you are familiar with them, they lose their humility. If you maintain a reserve towards them, they are discontented."

"Ladies of fashion starve their happiness to feed their vanity, and their love to feed their pride."

"The greatest heroes that the world can know, To women their original must owe."

"Quand elle lève ses paupières, on dirait qu'elle se déshabille."

"Behold! her bosom and half her side— A sight to dream of, not to tell!"

"Her gentle limbs did she undress And lay down in her loveliness."

"I guess, 'twas frightful there to see A lady so richly clad as she— Beautiful exceedingly!"

"A damsel with a dulcimer In a vision once I saw: It was an Abyssinian maid And on her dulcimer she play'd, Singing of Mount Abora."

"One day, I got a call to come into General Arnold's office. He said, "What do you know about the B-26?" I said, "I don’t know a thing except the scuttlebutt that it’s a so-called hot airplane." The men were saying that they were willing to be killed in war, but they wouldn't fly the B-26. ... I flew the plane and didn't see any thing so difficult about it. I came back and said to General Arnold, "I can cure your men of walking off the program. Let's put on the girls.""

"If a woman likes another woman, she's cordial. If she doesn't like her, she's very cordial."

"Where were you, last night?" "I was in bed ... sleeping Beside you ... Of course!" "And I was leaping Broomsticks, and burying Jesus, And patting Godiva's horse!"

"Women are weak, as you say, and love of all things to be passive, Passive, patient, receptive, yea, even of wrong and misdoing, Even to force and misdoing with joy and victorious feeling Patient, passive, receptive; for that is the strength of their being, Like to the earth taking all things, and all to good converting."

"In too many instances, the march to globalization has also meant the marginalization of women and girls."

"If there is one message that echoes forth from this conference, it is that human rights are women's rights — and women's rights are human rights. Let us not forget that among those rights are the right to speak freely — and the right to be heard."

"Woman is the promise that cannot be kept; but it is precisely in this that my mercy consists."

"Men that had seen her Drank deep and were silent, The women were speaking Wherever she went, As a bell that is rung Or a wonder told shyly, And O she was the Sunday In every week."

"We shall find no fiend in hell can match the fury of a disappointed woman,—scorn'd! slighted! dismiss'd without a parting pang."

"What else is woman but a foe to friendship, an inevitable penance, a necessary evil, a natural temptation, a coveted calamity, a domestic peril, a pleasant harm, the nature of evil painted over with the colours of good: wherefore it is a sin to desert her, but a torment to keep her."

"Les religieuses et les femmes mariées sont malheureuses de différente manière."