Women

"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."

"Furens quid fœmina possit."

"Very learned women are to be found, in the same manner as female warriors; but they are seldom or ever inventors."

"All the reasonings of men are not worth one sentiment of women."

"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."

"Q. What is a woman? A. An adult human female, who needs help opening this. [hands him an unopened jar]"

"My wife is one of the best wimin on this Continent, altho' she isn't always gentle as a lamb with mint sauce."

": And women like that part which, like the lamprey, Hath never a bone in’t. : Fie, sir! : Nay, I mean the tongue; variety of courtship: What cannot a neat knave with a smooth tale Make a woman believe?"

"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..."

"There’s nothing sooner dry than women’s tears."

"Eine Frau nun sieht nie ein, daß man alles auch begründen müsse; da sie keine Kontinuität hat, empfindet sie auch kein Bedürfnis nach der logischen Stützung alles Gedachten: daher die Leichtgläubigkeit aller Weiber. ... Die Frau erbittert die Zumutung, ihr Denken von der Logik ausnahmslos abhängig zu machen. Ihr mangelt das intellektuelle Gewissen. Man könnte bei ihr von »logical insanity« sprechen."

"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."

"Where women walk in public processions in the streets the same as the men, Where they enter the public assembly and take places the same as the men; Where the city of the faithfullest friends stands, Where the city of the cleanliness of the sexes stands, Where the city of the healthiest fathers stands, Where the city of the best-bodied mothers stands, There the great city stands."

"As pure and sweet, her fair brow seemed— Eternal as the sky; And like the brook's low song, her voice— A sound which could not die."

"Sweet promptings unto kindest deeds Were in her very look; We read her face, as one who reads A true and holy book."

"Women are a decorative sex. They never have anything to say, but they say it charmingly."

"Women treat us just as humanity treats its gods. They worship us, and are always bothering us to do something for them."

"There are only two kinds of women, the plain and the coloured."

"Oh! no one. No one in particular. A woman of no importance."

"Our government should not be run like a business; it should be run like a family...In any advanced mammalian species that survives and thrives, a common characteristic is the fierce behavior of the adult female of the species when she senses a threat to her cubs. Ours are threatened now, and we need to get fierce."

"That makes no sense," I said. "This is the Victorian era," she said. "Women didn't have to make sense."

"You can't sit down right, 'Cause your jeans are too tight, And you're lucky it's ladies night. With your big empty purse, Every week it gets worse, At least your breasts cost more than hers."

"Shall I, wasting in despair, Die because a woman's fair? Or make pale my cheeks with care 'Cause another's rosy are? Be she fairer than the day, Or the flow'ry meads in May; If she be not so to me, What care I how fair she be?"

"Taught from their infancy that beauty is woman's sceptre, the mind shapes itself to the body, and roaming round its gilt cage, only seeks to adorn its prison."

"The right Education of the Female Sex, as it is in a manner every where neglected, so it ought to be generally lamented. Most in this depraved later Age think a Woman learned and wise enough if she can distinguish her Husband's Bed from another's."

"Women have served all these centuries as looking-glasses possessing the magic and delicious power of reflecting the figure of a man at twice its natural size."

"She was a gentlewoman, a scholar, and a saint, and after having been three times married, she took a vow of celibacy. What more could be expected of any woman?"

"And beautiful as sweet! And young as beautiful! and soft as young! And gay as soft! and innocent as gay."

"As unreserved, and beauteous, as the sun, Through every sign of vanity they run, Assemblies, parks, coarse feasts in City halls, Lectures, and trials, plays, committees, balls, Wells, bedlams, executions, Smithfield scenes, And fortune-tellers’ caves, and lions’ dens, Taverns, exchanges, bridewells, drawing-rooms, Instalments, pillories, coronations, tombs, Tumblers, and funerals, puppet-shows, reviews, Sales, races, rabbits, and (still stranger!) pews."

"Women want to become independent. To this end they are beginning to enlighten men about "women as such." This is one of the worst aspects of progress in the general uglification of Europe."

"Supposing truth is a woman—what then? Are there not grounds for the suspicion that all philosophers, insofar as they were dogmatists, have been very inexpert about women? That the gruesome seriousness, the clumsy obtrusiveness with which they have usually approached truth so far have been awkward and very improper methods for winning a woman's heart? What is certain is that she has not allowed herself to be won."

"In no age has the weaker sex been treated with as much respect by men as in ours: that belongs to the democratic inclination and basic taste, just like disrespectfulness for old age."

"Man shall be trained for war, and woman for the recreation of the warrior: all else is folly."

"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."

"Du gehst zu Frauen? Vergiss die Peitsche nicht!"

"Wherever the industrial spirit has triumphed over the military and aristocratic spirit, woman now aspires to the economic and legal self-reliance of a clerk."

"... ut nemo nisi caecus omnino non videat Deum ipsum quicquid pulchritudinis capax est mundus universus in mulierem simul congessisse, ut ob id illam omnis creatura stupescat, et multis nominibus amet ac veneretur."