"The world must keep one great amateur, lest we all become artists and perish. Somebody must renounce all specialist conquests, that she may conquer all the conquerors. That she may be a queen of life, she must not be a private soldier in it."

"Women, then, are only children of a larger growth."

"A woman can only become a man’s friend in three stages: first, she’s an agreeable acquaintance, then a mistress, and only after that a friend."

"My lige lady, generally," quod he, "Wommen desyren to have sovereyntee As wel over hir housbond as hir love."

"Ther seyde ones a clerk in two vers: "what is bettre than gold? Iaspre. What is bettre than Iaspre? Wisdom. / And what is bettre than wisdom? Womman. And what is bettre than a good womman? No-thing.""

"But love a womman that she woot it nought, And she wol quyte it that thow shalt nat fele; Unknowe, unkist, and lost, that is unsought."

"And she was fayr as is the rose in May."

"Woman is the crowning excellence of God's creation, the shadow of the gods. Man the god's creation only. Woman is light, man is shadow. Could the light do without the shadow?"

"Let no man value at a little price A virtuous woman's counsel; her wing'd spirit Is feather'd oftentimes with heavenly words."

"Confusion has seized us, and all things go wrong: The women have leaped from "their spheres" And instead of fixed stars, shoot as comets along, And are setting the world by the ears!"

"When a woman is a really good driver she is just about perfect."

"Maybe you don't like tall girls with honey-colored hair and skin like the first strawberry peach the grocer sneaks out of the box for himself. If you don't, I'm sorry for you."

"A cigarette girl came down the gangway. She wore an egret plume in her hair, enough clothes to hide behind a toothpick, one of her long beautiful naked legs was silver, and one was gold. She had the utterly disdainful expression of a dame who makes her dates by long distance."

"A check girl in peach-bloom Chinese pajamas came over to take my hat and disapprove of my clothes. She had eyes like strange sins."

"Suddenly, without any real change in her, she ceased to be beautiful. She looked merely like a woman who would have been dangerous a hundred years ago, and twenty years ago daring, but who today was just Grade B Hollywood."

"She sighed. "All men are the same." "So are all women—after the first nine.""

"I like smooth shiny girls, hardboiled and loaded with sin."

"Her hand was small and had shape, not the usual bony garden tool you see on women nowadays."

"You can have a hangover from other things than alcohol. I had one from women. Women made me sick."

"It's so hard for women—even nice women—to realize that their bodies are not irresistible."

"The girl slept on, motionless, in that curled-up looseness achieved by some women and all cats."

"I like games of chance, including women."

"Gods! what a sight! What heavenly whiteness! breathing and alive, A swelling picture!"

"An honest maid and a broken leg are best at home, a woman and a hen are soon lost by gadding, and the girl who’s anxious to see also longs to be seen."

"Esa es natural condición de mujeres, desdeñar á quien las quiere, y amar á quien las aborrece."

"La muger que se determina á ser honrada entre un ejército de soldados lo puede ser."

"But for the most part, women are not educated as they should be, I mean those of quality; oft their education is only to dance, sing, and fiddle, to write complimental letters, to read romances, to speak some languages that is not their native...their parents take more care of their feet than their head, more of their words than their reason."

"If Nature had not befriended us with beauty, and other good graces, to help us to insinuate our selves into men’s affections, we should have been more enslaved than any other of Nature’s creatures she hath made."

"Nulli se dicit mulier mea nubere malle quam mihi, non si se Iuppiter ipse petat. Dicit: sed mulier cupido quod dicit amantī, in vento et rapida scribere oportet aqua."

"Chi non sa che senza le donne sentir non si po contento o satisfazione alcuna in tutta questa nostra vita, la quale senza esse saria rustica e priva d'ogni dolcezza e piú aspera che quella dell'alpestre fiere? Chi non sa che le donne sole levano de' nostri cori tutti li vili e bassi pensieri, gli affanni, le miserie e quelle turbide tristezze che cosí spesso loro sono compagne?"

"Be assured, that when a woman once begins to be ashamed of what she ought not to be ashamed of, she will not be ashamed of what she ought."

"Date frenos impotenti naturae et indomito animali et sperate ipsas modum licentiae facturas; nisi vos feceritis, minimum hoc eorum est, quae iniquo animo feminae sibi aut moribus aut legibus iniuncta patiuntur. Omnium rerum libertatem, immo licentiam, si vere dicere volumus, desiderant."

"Las mujeres son el impuesto que pagamos por el placer."

"La donna è come un libro che, buono o cattivo, deve piacere fin dalla copertina."

"Here's all you have to know about men and women: women are crazy, men are stupid. And the main reason women are crazy is that men are stupid."

"In danger, mind you, a woman behind you Can turn your blood to fire."

"Of all the girls that are so smart, There's none like pretty Sally."

"En cosas, mayormente de mujeres, Jamas tuvo segura la balanza: Allí son mas inciertos los placeres, Y está mucho mas cierta la mudanza."

"Girls are made of water and boys are made of mud. When I am with girls I feel fresh and clean, but when I am with boys I feel stupid and nasty."

"La mas fina Tiene una moneda rara Que cuando la dice, es oro, Que cuando la llora, es perlas Que cuando la escribe, es plata, Y es cobre cuando la trueca."

"There is a garden in her face Where roses and white lilies blow; A heavenly paradise is that place, Wherein all pleasant fruits do flow: There cherries grow which none may buy Till "Cherry-ripe" themselves do cry."

"White Iope, blithe Helen, and the rest."

"Follow your saint, follow with accents sweet! Haste you, sad notes, fall at her flying feet!"

"Follow thy fair sun, unhappy shadow! Though thou be black as night, And she made all of light, Yet follow thy fair sun, unhappy shadow!"

"I care not for these ladies, That must be wooed and prayed; Give me kind Amaryllis, The wanton country maid."

"The world was sad; the garden was a wild; And man, the hermit, sigh'd—till woman smiled."

"The cruel girls we loved Are over forty. Their subtle daughters Have stolen their beauty; And with a blue stare Of cool surprise, They mock their anxious mothers With their mothers' eyes."