Women

"She is not worthy to be loved, that hath not some feeling of her own worthiness."

"A fair woman shall not only command without authority but persuade without speaking. She shall not need to procure attention, for their own eyes will chain their ears unto it. Men venture lives to conquer; she conquers lives without venturing."

"It is against womanhood, to be forward in their own wishes."

"Woman was formed to admire, man to be admirable. His are the glories of the sun at noon-day; hers the softened splendour of the midnight moon."

"She shuttled between impish girlhood and neurotic womanhood."

"She came forward like a film star, or rather like the ideal woman in an adolescent’s dream."

"Lor', but women's rum cattle to deal with, the first man found that to his cost, And I reckon it's just through a woman the last man on earth'll be lost."

"She is the vyolet, The daysy delectable, The columbine commendable, The jelofer amyable; For this most goodly floure, This blossom of fressh colour, So Jupiter me succour, She florysheth new and new In beaute and vertew."

"With solace and gladnes, Moche mirthe and no madnes, All good and no badnes, So joyously, So maydenly, So womanly Her demenying In every thynge."

"Far may be sought Erst that ye can fynde So corteise, so kynde As mirry Margarete, This midsomer flowre, Jentyll as fawcoun Or hawke of the towre."

"By saynt Mary, my lady, Your mammy and your dady Brought forth a godely babi!"

"How few women have any history after the age of thirty!"

"This Englishwoman is so refined She has no bosom and no behind."

"If we are to use the women for the same things as the men, we must also teach them the same things."

"Ha belle blonde Au cors si gent Perle du monde Que j'aime tant!"

"I am the rose of Sharon, and the lily of the valleys."

"Γύναι, γυναιξὶ κόσμον ἡ σιγὴ φέρει."

"Νῦν δ' οὐδέν εἰμι χωρίς."

"What wilt not woman, gentle woman, dare When strong affection stirs her spirit up?"

"The history of mankind is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations on the part of man toward woman, having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over her. ... He has never permitted her to exercise her inalienable right to the elective franchise. He has compelled her to submit to laws, in the formation of which she had no voice. ... Having deprived her of this first right as a citizen, the elective franchise, thereby leaving her without representation in the halls of legislation, he has oppressed her on all sides. He has made her, if married, in the eye of the law, civilly dead."

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men and women are created equal."

"Women's degradation is in man's idea of his sexual rights. Our religion, laws, customs, are all founded on the belief that woman was made for man. Come what will, my whole soul rejoices in the truth that I have uttered."

"The craft is only one path among the many opening up for women, and many of us will blaze new trails as we explore the uncharted country of our own interiors. The heritage, the culture, the knowledge of the ancient priestesses, healers, poets, singers, and seers were nearly lost, but a seed survived the flames that will blossom in a new age into thousands of flowers. The long sleep of Mother Goddess is ended. May She awaken in each of our hearts."

"The great and almost only comfort about being a woman is that one can always pretend to be more stupid than one is and no one is surprised."

"He beheld his own rougher make softened into sweetness, and tempered with smiles; he saw a creature who had, as it were, Heaven's second thought in her formation."

"Will Honeycomb calls these over-offended ladies the outrageously virtuous."

"Any woman who chooses to behave like a full human being should be warned that the armies of the status quo will treat her as something of a dirty joke; that's their natural and first weapon. She will need sisterhood."

"The weaker sex, to piety more prone."

"Men can be great when great occasions call: In little duties women find their spheres, The narrow cares that cluster round the hearth."

"She is no worthy woman who forsakes her honour for her body, or her body for her honour."

"Where a woman has loved most, there she will soonest avenge herself."

"In woman I sought an angel, who could lend me wings, and I fell into the arms of an earth-spirit, who suffocated me under mattresses stuffed with the feathers of wings! I sought an Ariel and I found a Caliban; when I wanted to rise she dragged me down; and continually reminded me of the fall...."

"Every healthy man is a woman-hater—yet he cannot survive if he does not ally himself with his enemy and bring about strife. All deviates and effeminate perverts among men have an adoration for women!"

"The beginning and the end—for us men anyhow. In relationship to one another they are nothing."

"Nothing in themselves; but everything for us, through us! Our honour and our shame; our greatest joy, our deepest pain; our redemption and our fall; our wages and our punishment; our strength and our weakness."

"Perhaps some sort of larva, or pupa, out of whose somnambulist life a man will be created. She is like a child, yet is not one; she is a sort of child, but is not like one. When the man pulls upward, she drags downward; when the man drags downward, she pulls upward!"

""To love" is an active verb, and "woman" is a passive noun. He loves—she is loved; he interrogates—she merely answers!"

"I saw fair Chloris walk alone, When feather'd rain came softly down, As Jove descending from his Tower To court her in a silver shower: The wanton snow flew to her breast, Like pretty birds into their nest, But, overcome with whiteness there, For grief it thaw'd into a tear: Thence falling on her garments' hem, To deck her, froze into a gem."

"She is pretty to walk with, And witty to talk with, And pleasant too, to think on."

"If of herself she will not love, Nothing can make her: The devil take her!"

"Women never look so well as when one comes in wet and dirty from hunting."

"The one thing that made her content to be a woman was that she would never have to marry one."

", n. The guilt of woman."

"Les hommes sont cause que les femmes ne s'aiment point."

"Les femmes sont extrémes: elles sont meilleures ou pires que les hommes."

"... the mark God sets on woman, signifying so She should—shall peradventure—be divine."

"The woman yonder, there's no use of life But just to obtain her! heap earth's woes in one And bear them—make a pile of all earth's joys And spurn them, as they help or help not this; Only, obtain her!"

"Womanliness means only motherhood; All love begins and ends there."

"He gazed and gazed and gazed and gazed, Amazed, amazed, amazed, amazed."

"Dear dead women, with such hair, too—what’s become of all the gold Used to hang and brush their bosoms? I feel chilly and grown old."