"It is not in giving life but in risking life that man is raised above the animal; that is why superiority has been accorded in humanity not to the sex that brings forth but to that which kills."

"On ne naît pas femme: on le devient."

"Woman, they say, was only made of man: Methinks ’tis strange they should be so unlike! It may be all the best was cut away, To make the woman, and the naught was left Behind with him."

"There is a vile, dishonest trick in man, More than in women: all the men I meet Appear thus to me,—are harsh and rude, And have a subtilty in everything, Which love could never know; but we, fond women, Harbour the easiest and smoothest thoughts, And think all shall go so."

"Then, my good girls, be more than women, wise: At least be more than I was; and be sure You credit anything the light gives life to Before a man."

"As the fairest, daintiest natural thing will not brook rough handling or too close and continued examination, the iridescence of the butterfly’s wing, the velvet of the rose petal, so the rare and exquisite essence of womanliness will not bear the heat, the mud, the profanation of the public arena."

"Elle éblouit comme l'Aurore Et console comme la Nuit."

"Expliquera, morbleu! les femmes qui pourra!"

"Got myself a cryin', talkin', sleepin', walkin', livin' doll."

"The way to fight a woman is with your hat. Grab it and run."

"You see, dear, it is not true that woman was made from man's rib; she was really made from his funny bone."

"Charm...it’s a sort of bloom on a woman. If you have it, you don’t need to have anything else; and if you don’t have it, it doesn’t much matter what else you have. Some women, the few, have charm for all; and most have charm for one. But some have charm for none."

"Not she with trait'rous kiss her Saviour stung, Not she denied him with unholy tongue; She, while apostles shrank, could danger brave, Last at his cross, and earliest at his grave."

"Woman can equal man in loving strength: She shall surpass him, when her heart at length Quite flowers with fragrance fair. The man who brings her all the soul of Art Never quite wins her secret silent heart Unless his soul is there."

"O born to soothe distress and lighten care, Lively as soft, and innocent as fair! Blest with that sweet simplicity of thought So rarely found, and never to be taught; Of winning speech, endearing, artless, kind, The loveliest pattern of a female mind; Like some fair spirit from the realms of rest, With all her native heaven within her breast; So pure, so good, she scarce can guess at sin, But thinks the world without like that within; Such melting tenderness, so fond to bless, Her charity almost become excess. Wealth may be courted, Wisdom be revered, And Beauty praised, and brutal Strength be fear'd, But Goodness only can affection move, And love must owe its origin to love."

"To guard carefully her chastity; to control circumspectly her behavior; in every motion to exhibit modesty; and to model each act on the best usage, this is womanly virtue."

"Il n’y a que des enfants aimants et aimés qui puissent consoler une femme de la perte de sa beauté."

"Les vieilles filles n'ayant pas fait plier leur caractère et leur vie à une autre vie ni à d'autres caractères, comme l'exige la destinée de la femme, ont, pour la plupart, la manie de vouloir tout faire plier autour d'elles."

"La physionomie des femmes ne commence qu'à trente ans."

"Les femmes tiennent et doivent toutes tenir à être honorées, car sans l'estime elles n'existent plus. Aussi est-ce le premier sentiment qu'elles demandent à l'amour."

"La sainteté des femmes est inconciliable avec les devoirs et les libertés du monde. Emanciper les femmes, c'est les corrompre."

"Mes avis sur vos relations avec les femmes sont aussi dans ce mot de chevalerie: Les servir toutes, n'en aimer qu'une."

"Peut-être veulent-elles [les femmes] un peu d'hypocrisie?"

"La femme est un délicieux instrument de plaisir, mais il faut en connaitre les frémissantes cordes, en étudier la pose, le clavier timide, le doigté changeant et capricieux."

"Les femmes les plus vertueuses ont en elles quelque chose qui n'est jamais chaste."

"La vertu des femmes est peut-être une question de tempérament."

"Lorsque les femmes nous aiment, elles nous pardonnent tout, même nos crimes; lorsqu'elles ne nous aiment pas, elles ne nous pardonnent rien, pas même nos vertus!"

"Les hivers sont pour les femmes à la mode ce que fut jadis une campagne pour les militaires de l’empire."

"Les femmes sont toujours vraies, même au milieu de leurs plus grandes faussetés, parce qu’elles cèdent à quelque sentiment naturel."

"My ideal of womanhood has always been the pioneer woman who fought and worked at her husband's side. She bore the children, kept the home fires burning; she was the hub of the family, the planner and the dreamer."

"He took the rotundity of the moon, and the curves of creepers, and the clinging of tendrils, and the trembling of grass, and the slenderness of the reed, and the bloom of flowers, and the lightness of leaves, and the tapering of the elephant's trunk, and the glances of deer, and the clustering of rows of bees, and the joyous gaiety of sunbeams, and the weeping of clouds, and the fickleness of the winds, and the timidity of the hare, and the vanity of the peacock, and the softness of the parrot’s bosom, and the hardness of adamant, and the sweetness of honey, and the cruelty of the tiger, and the warm glow of fire, and the coldness of snow, and the chattering of jays, and the cooing of the kókila, and the hypocrisy of the crane, and the fidelity of the chakrawáka; and compounding all these together he made woman, and gave her to man."

"But woman's grief is like a summer storm, Short as it violent is."

"Her step is music, and her voice is song."

"Women—one half the human race at least—care fifty times more for a marriage than a ministry."

"But women aren’t like, like...computers or suh'm. You can't just get an access code and then programme 'em to do what you want 'em to. Trust me. About three billion guys've had to learn the same lesson."

"Woman's love is writ in water, Woman's faith is traced in sand."

""Nam quae praeda, rogas, quae spes contingere posset, iurgia nutricis cum mihi verba darent?"Haec sibi dicta putet seque hac sciat arte notari, femineam quisquis credidit esse fidem."

"... 'tis ordained, In death, as sooth in every pinch of life, That women, lest they cry too loud, must hug Their agony in silence."

"Women love all whom grief and death attaint."

"No one can think more highly of the understanding of women than I do. In my opinion, nature has given them so much, that they never find it necessary to use more than half."

"A single woman, with a very narrow income, must be a ridiculous, disagreeable, old maid! the proper sport of boys and girls; but a single woman, of good fortune, is always respectable, and may be as sensible and pleasant as anybody else."

"A lady's imagination is very rapid; it jumps from admiration to love, from love to matrimony, in a moment."

"What greater thing do they wish in their whole lives than that they may please the man? For to what other purpose are all those dresses, washes, baths, slops, perfumes, and those several little tricks of setting their faces, painting their eyebrows, and smoothing their skins? And now tell me, what higher letters of recommendation have they to men than this folly?"

"When greater perils men environ, Then women show a front of iron; And, gentle in their manner, they Do bold things in a quiet way."

"A woman is like a tea bag. You don't know its strength until it's in hot water."

"They're always abusing the women, As a terrible plague to men: They say we're the root of all evil, And repeat it again and again; Of war and quarrels and bloodshed, All mischief, be what it may: And pray, then, why do you marry us, If we're all the plagues you say? And why do you take such care of us, And keep us so safe at home, And are never easy a moment, If ever we chance to roam? When you ought to be thanking heaven That your Plague is out of the way— You all keep fussing and fretting— "Where is my Plague today?" If a Plague peeps out of the window, Up go the eyes of the men; If she hides then they all keep staring Until she looks out again."