Women

"In too many instances, the march to globalization has also meant the marginalization of women and girls."

"Women are weak, as you say, and love of all things to be passive, Passive, patient, receptive, yea, even of wrong and misdoing, Even to force and misdoing with joy and victorious feeling Patient, passive, receptive; for that is the strength of their being, Like to the earth taking all things, and all to good converting."

"Where were you, last night?" "I was in bed ... sleeping Beside you ... Of course!" "And I was leaping Broomsticks, and burying Jesus, And patting Godiva's horse!"

"If a woman likes another woman, she's cordial. If she doesn't like her, she's very cordial."

"One day, I got a call to come into General Arnold's office. He said, "What do you know about the B-26?" I said, "I don’t know a thing except the scuttlebutt that it’s a so-called hot airplane." The men were saying that they were willing to be killed in war, but they wouldn't fly the B-26. ... I flew the plane and didn't see any thing so difficult about it. I came back and said to General Arnold, "I can cure your men of walking off the program. Let's put on the girls.""

"A damsel with a dulcimer In a vision once I saw: It was an Abyssinian maid And on her dulcimer she play'd, Singing of Mount Abora."

"I guess, 'twas frightful there to see A lady so richly clad as she— Beautiful exceedingly!"

"Her gentle limbs did she undress And lay down in her loveliness."

"Behold! her bosom and half her side— A sight to dream of, not to tell!"

"Quand elle lève ses paupières, on dirait qu'elle se déshabille."

"The greatest heroes that the world can know, To women their original must owe."

"Ladies of fashion starve their happiness to feed their vanity, and their love to feed their pride."

"Of all people, girls and servants are the most difficult to behave to. If you are familiar with them, they lose their humility. If you maintain a reserve towards them, they are discontented."

"Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned."

"Women are like tricks by sleight of hand, Which, to admire, we should not understand."

"There is no fury like an ex-wife searching for a new lover."

"The worker is the slave of capitalist society, the female worker is the slave of that slave."

"It's queer how out of touch with truth women are. They live in a world of their own, and there has never been anything like it, and never can be. It is too beautiful altogether, and if they were to set it up it would go to pieces before the first sunset. Some confounded fact we men have been living contentedly with ever since the day of creation would start up and knock the whole thing over."

"It’s nice to meet serious people And hear them explain their views: Your concern for the rights of women Is especially welcome news. I’m sure you’d never exploit one; I expect you’d rather be dead; I’m thoroughly convinced of it— Now can we go to bed?"

"Quelle injustice aux dieux d'abandonner aux femmes Un empire si grand sur les plus belles ames, Et de se plaire à voir de si faibles vainqueurs Régner si puissamment sur les plus nobles cœurs!"

"The sweetest noise on earth, a woman's tongue; A string which hath no discord."

"Certum est enim, longos esse crines omnibus sed breves sensus mulieribus."

"Conservatives have a problem with women. For that matter, all men do."

"Certain women should be struck regularly, like gongs."

"What is Woman? Only one of Nature's agreeable blunders."

"Well thou play'dst the housewife's part, And all thy threads with magic art Have wound themselves about this heart, My Mary."

"Her air, her manners, all who saw admired; Courteous though coy, and gentle, though retired: The joy of youth and health her eyes display'd, And ease of heart her every look convey'd."

"Whoe'er she be, That not impossible she, That shall command my heart and me."

"the Cambridge ladies who live in furnished souls are unbeautiful and have comfortable minds."

"Women are as inscrutable as the ocean. You never know what you have under your keel, deep water or shallow, until you have heaved the lead."

"What most men desire is a virgin who is a whore."

"Woman is the most superstitious animal beneath the moon. When a woman has a premonition that Tuesday will be a disaster, to which a man pays no heed, he will very likely lose his fortune then. This is not meant to be an occult or mystic remark. The female body is a vessel, and the universe drops its secrets into her far more quickly than it communicates them to the male."

"An elegant woman is a woman who despises you and who has no hair under her arms."

"Quanto in femmina fuoco d'amor dura, Se l'occhio o 'l tatto spesso nol raccende."

"[Women's Liberation] ... is an ontological, spiritual revolution, pointing beyond the idolatries of sexist society and sparking creative action in and toward transcendence. The becoming of women implies universal human becoming. It has everything to do with the search for ultimate meaning and reality which some would call God."

"It requires a kick in the imagination, a wrenching of tired words, to realize that feminism is the final and therefore the first cause, and that this movement is movement. Realization of this is already the beginning of a qualitative leap in being. For the philosophers of senescence 'the final cause' is in technical reason; it is the Father's plan, an endless flow of Xerox copies of the past. But the final cause that is movement is in our imaginative-cerebral-emotional-active-creative being."

"Puella vero, quia ferrum est quod feminæ observant, magis quam Catonianam gravitatem."

"Man is more powerful in body and mind than woman, and in the savage state he keeps her in a far more abject state of bondage, than does the male of any other animal; therefore it is not surprising that he should have gained the power of selection. Women are everywhere conscious of the value of their own beauty; and when they have the means, they take more delight in decorating themselves with all sorts of ornaments than do men. They borrow the plumes of male birds, with which nature has decked this sex in order to charm the females."

"In the Divorce Court women complain of losing weight. Outside the Divorce Court they complain of putting it on."

"Qui va plus tost que la fumée, Si ce n'est la flamme allumée? Plus tost que la flamme? le vent: Plus tost que le vent? c'est la femme: Quoi plus? rien, elle va devant Le vent, la fumée et la flamme."

"Women are door-mats and have been,— The years those mats applaud,— They keep their men from going in With muddy feet to God."

"A lady is one who never shows her underwear unintentionally."

"Why then should women be denied the benefits of instruction? If knowledge and understanding had been useless additions to the sex, God almighty would never have given them capacities."

"Were there no women, men might live like gods."

"There's no music when a woman is in the concert."

"Women never have young minds. They are born three thousand years old."

"Now we have courtesans for the sake of pleasure, but concubines for the sake of daily cohabitation, and wives for the purpose of having children legitimately, and of having a faithful guardian of all our household affairs."

"Now, a woman, she’s a woman. I ’ave fixed that for a cert. They’re jist as like as rows uv peas from ’at to ’em uv skirt. An’ then, they’re all so different, yeh find, before yeh’ve done, The more yeh know uv all uv ’em the less yeh know uv one."

"Women is strange. You take my tip; I’m wise. I know enough to know I'll never know The ’uman female mind."

"Les femmes ont toujours quelque arrière pensée."