Women

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

"Women receive too much consideration in France. They should not be regarded as the equals of men; they are, in fact, mere machines to make children."

"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."

"Look at young Davies makin' an ass of himself over mutton-dressed-as-lamb old enough to be his mother!"

"When you get to a man in the case, They're like as a row of pins— For the Colonel's Lady an' Judy O'Grady Are sisters under their skins!"

"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."

"An' I learned about women from 'er!"

"I've taken my fun where I've found it, An' now I must pay for my fun, For the more you 'ave known o' the others The less will you settle to one; An' the end of it's sittin' and thinkin', An' dreamin' Hell-fires to see; So be warned by my lot (which I know you will not), An' learn about women from me!"

"A Nation spoke to a Nation, A Queen sent word to a Throne: 'Daughter am I in my mother's house, But mistress in my own. The gates are mine to open, As the gates are mine to close, And I set my house in order,' Said our Lady of the Snows."

"But I consort with long-haired things In velvet collar-rolls, Who talk about the Aims of Art, And ‘theories’ and ‘goals’, And moo and coo with women-folk About their blessed souls."

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

"’Tisn’t beauty, so to speak, nor good talk necessarily. It’s just It. Some women’ll stay in a man’s memory if they once walked down a street."

"When the Hymalayan peasant meets the he-bear in his pride, He shouts to scare the monster, who will often turn aside. But the she-bear thus accosted, rends the peasant tooth and nail, For the female of the species is more deadly than the male. * * * * * * So it comes that Man, the coward, when he gathers to confer With his fellow-braves in council, dare not leave a place for her Where, at war with Life and Conscience, he uplifts his erring hands To some God of Abstract justice—which no woman understands. And Man knows it! Knows, moreover, that the Woman that God gave him Must command but may not govern—shall enthral but not enslave him. And She knows, because She warns him, and Her instincts never fail, That the Female of Her Species is more deadly than the Male."

"Worlds may change, galaxies disintegrate, but a woman... always remains a woman."

"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."

"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."

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

"All sensible people agree in thinking that large seminaries of young ladies, though managed with all the vigilance and caution which human abilities can exert, are in danger of great corruption."

"That learning belongs not to the female character, and that the female mind is not capable of a degree of improvement equal to that of the other sex, are narrow and unphilosophical prejudices."

"The horror of death so typical of modern man is probably another feminine aspect of our time. "Media vita in morte sumus" is the hymn of a male and hierarchic age. The great thing in the life of the male is death just as love is the keynote of a female life. "Man is the glory of God, but woman is the glory of man," says St. Paul. The man finds his final reunion with God through the gate of death, but the woman gets the foreboding of such a reunion in her love to a man. Men also love women as children of God but, while this remains an indirect approach to Him, death always remains the shortest route to the Father. This is also the reason why there is such a deep metaphysical relation between love and death."

"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."

"Il y a une femme à l'origine de toutes les grandes choses."

"What! still retaining your Utopian visions of female felicity? To talk of our happiness!—ours, the ill-used and oppressed! You remind me of the ancient tyrant, who, seeing his slaves sink under the weight of their chains, said, 'Do look at the indolent repose of those people!'"

"Whenever I hear a man talking of the advantages of our ill-used sex, I look upon it as the prelude to some new act of authority."

"A woman only can understand a woman; and it is pleasant to be understood sometimes."

"Stand close around, ye Stygian set, With Dirce in one boat convey’d! Or Charon, seeing, may forget That he is old and she a shade."

"Past ruin’d Ilion Helen lives, Alcestis rises from the shades; Verse calls them forth; ’tis verse that gives Immortal youth to mortal maids."

"If children cease to be altogether desirable, women cease to be altogether necessary."

"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?"

"Every phase of our life belongs to us. The moon does not, except in appearance, lose her first thin, luminous curve, nor her silvery crescent, in rounding to her full. The woman is still both child and girl, in the completeness of womanly character. We have a right to our entire selves, through all the changes of this mortal state, a claim which we shall doubtless carry along with us into the unfolding mysteries of our eternal being. Perhaps in this thought lies hidden the secret of immortal youth: for a seer has said that "to grow old in heaven is to grow young.""

"Sie empfinden mehr. Empfindung ist Kraft der Weiblichkeit. Sie herrschen oft tiefer, kräftiger, als die Männer, aber nicht mit Zorn und Donnerwort — (thun sie's, Weiber sind sie nicht mehr — sind Mißgeburten, in so fern sie so herrschen) herrschen mit diesem Blicke, dieser Thräne, diesem Seufzer!"

"Whatever littleness and vanity is to be observed in the minds of women, it is like the cruelty of butchers, a temper that is wrought into them by that life which they are taught and accustomed to lead."

"For the pursuit of business her head is all wrong. Figures confuse her. She lacks sustained attention and in point of morals the average woman is, even for business, too crooked."

"Woman, a pleasing but a short-lived flow'r, Too soft for business and too weak for pow'r: A wife in bondage, or neglected maid; Despised, if ugly; if she's fair, betrayed."

"Being a woman is of special interest only to aspiring male transsexuals. To actual women, it is simply a good excuse not to play football."

"I have observed among all nations, that the women ornament themselves, more than the men; that, wherever found, they are the same kind, civil, obliging, humane, tender beings; that they are ever inclined to be gay and cheerful, timorous and modest. They do not hesitate, like man, to perform a hospitable or generous action; not haughty, nor arrogant, nor supercilious, but full of courtesy, and fond of society; industrious, economical, ingenuous; more liable in general, to err, than man, but in general, also, more virtuous, and performing more good actions than he. I never addressed myself, in the language of decency and friendship, to a woman, whether civilized or savage, without receiving a decent and friendly answer. With man it has often been otherwise. In wandering over the barren plains of inhospitable Denmark, through honest Sweden, frozen Lapland, rude and churlish Finland, unprincipled Russia, and the wide spread regions of the wandering Tartar, if hungry, dry, cold, wet, or sick, woman has ever been friendly to me, and uniformly so; and to add to this virtue, so worthy of the appellation of benevolence, these actions have been performed in so free and so kind a manner, that, if I was dry, I drank the sweet draught, and, if hungry, ate the coarse morsel, with a double relish."

"Philip fought men, but Alexander women."

"Sooner give a cobra a kiss, than a secret to a woman."

"(Que) el ser malas las mujeres Es delito delos hombres."

"Une femme sensée ne doit jamais prendre de mari sans le consentement de sa raison et d'amants sans l'aveu de son cœur."

"It’s no accident that #Metoo started in the entertainment and television-news businesses, where women are required to look as much like Barbie and Bratz dolls as possible, with the help of personal trainers, makeup artists, hair stylists, personal shoppers, and surgeons."

"Women love only the men they don’t know."

"O women, women! Who really does understand them? Their smiles contradict their glances, their words promise and beguile, but their tone of voice repulses."

"What would a woman not do to hurt a rival!"

"Ich hab' es immer gesagt: das Weib wollte die Natur zu ihrem Meisterstücke machen."

"Was hätt ein Weiberkopf erdacht, das er Nicht zu beschönen wüsste?"

"Are simple women only fit To dress, to darn, to flower, or knit, To mind the distaff, or the spit? Why are the needle and the pen Thought incompatible by men?"

"There's three things in a Woman's life that should never be empty, her heart, bed and glass."

"Let any one commend to these female runagates quietness, duty, home-staying, and the whole cohort of Wild Women is like an angry beehive which a rough hand has disturbed."

"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."