Women

"Women will find their place, and it will neither be that in which they have been held, nor that to which some of them aspire. Nature’s old salique law will not be repealed, and no change of dynasty will be effected."

"Ici, elle était vraiment fille; elle obéissait à son tempérament de femme ardente et cruelle; elle vivait, plus raffinée et plus sauvage, plus exécrable et plus exquise; elle réveillait plus énergiquement les sens en léthargie de l’homme, ensorcelait, domptait plus sûrement ses volontés, avec son charme de grande fleur vénérienne, poussée dans des couches sacrilèges, élevée dans des serres impies."

"Men may rule the world, but women rule the men who rule the world."

"O woman! thou wert fashioned to beguile: So have all sages said, all poets sung."

"A female mind like a rude fallow lies; No seed is sown, but weeds spontaneous rise. As well might we expect, in winter, spring, As land untilled a fruitful crop should bring."

"A woman’s whole life is a history of the affections. The heart is her world; it is there her ambition strives for empire; it is there her avarice seeks for hidden treasures. She sends forth her sympathies on adventure; she embarks her whole soul in the traffick of affection; and if shipwrecked, her case is hopeless — for it is a bankruptcy of the heart."

"I profess not to know how women's hearts are wooed and won. To me they have always been matters of riddle and admiration."

"A woman is more considerate in affairs of love than man; because love is more the study and business of her life."

"In that day seven women shall take hold of one man."

"To make women learned, and foxes tame, hath the same operation, which teacheth them to steale more cuningly, but the possibility is not equall, for when it doth one good, it doth twenty harme."

"It cam' wi' a lass, it will gang wi' a lass."

"In every disadvantage that a woman suffers at the hands of a man, there is inevitably, in what concerns the man, an element of cowardice. When I say "inevitably," I mean that this is what the woman sees in it."

"The superiority of one man's opinion over another's is never so great as when the opinion is about a woman."

"She had an intellect masculine in its range and detachment—a type of intellect possessed by some women in all ages, not, as they are apt to suppose it, the peculiar possession of modern women."

"He’s got tired of her now, has Martin. He said she took so much worshipping she made his knees sore."

"Were Women all like those whom here I name, Woman to man I surely would prefer; The Sun is feminine, nor deems it shame; The Moon, though masculine, depends on her."

"Let me not be sad because I am born a woman In this world; many saints suffer in this way."

"It is a sad woman who buys her own perfume."

"Women strangely hug the knife that stabs them."

"Quae mala sint hominum rebus tria maxima scire Quaeris? Habe paucis: femina, flamma, fretum."

"One woman reads another's character Without the tedious trouble of deciphering."

"A skein of silk without a knot! A fair march made without a halt! A curious form without a fault! A printed book without a blot! All beauty!—and without a spot."

"And where she went, the flowers took thickest root, As she had sow'd them with her odorous foot."

"Follow a shadow, it still flies you; Seem to fly it, it will pursue: So court a mistress, she denies you; Let her alone, she will court you. Say, are not women truly then Styled but the shadows of us men."

"A woman, the more curious she is about her face, is commonly the more careless about her house."

"Wretched, un-idea'd girls."

"I am very fond of the company of ladies. I like their beauty, I like their delicacy, I like their vivacity, and I like their silence."

"Ladies, stock and tend your hive, Trifle not at thirty-five; For, howe'er we boast and strive, Life declines from thirty-five; He that ever hopes to thrive Must begin by thirty-five."

"Sir, a woman's preaching is like a dog's walking on his hinder legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all."

"Férfi sorsa a nő!"

"We'll sport and be free with Moll, Betty, and Dolly, Have oysters and lobsters to cure melancholy: Fish-dinners will make a lass spring like a flea, Dame Venus, love's lady, Was born of the sea."

"Nulla fere causa est in qua non femina litem moverit."

"Intolerabilius nihil est quam fœmina dives."

"Vindicta Nemo magis gaudet, quam femina."

"Women are encouraged to have careers because their talents are useful to the system and, more importantly, because by having regular jobs women become better integrated into the system and tied directly to it rather than to their families. This helps to weaken family solidarity."

"The five worst infirmities that afflict the female are indocility, discontent, slander, jealousy, and silliness."

"Une femme qui écrit a deux torts: elle augmente le nombre des livres, et elle diminue le nombre des femmes."

"Dans la vie, comme à la promenade, une femme doit s'appuyer sur un homme un peu plus grand qu'elle."

"The supreme virtue of the virtuous woman was modesty, a form of sexual self-control, manifested not only in chastity but in decorous dress and manner, speech and deed, and in reticence in the display of her well-banked affections. A virtue, as it were, made for courtship, it served simultaneously as a source of attraction and a spur to manly ardor, a guard against a woman's own desires, as well as a defense against unworthy suitors. A fine woman understood that giving her body (in earlier times, even her kiss) meant giving her heart, which was too precious to be bestowed on anyone who would not prove himself worthy, at the very least by pledging himself in marriage to be her defender and lover forever."

"Behind each woman rises the austere, sacred and mysterious face of Aphrodite. ... Dame Hortense was only an ephemeral and transparent mask which Zorba tore away to kiss the eternal mouth."

"A woman's body is a dark and monstrous mystery; between her supple thighs a heavy whirlpool swirls, two rivers crash, and woe to him who slips and falls!"

"I met a lady in the meads Full beautiful—a faery's child, Her hair was long, her foot was light, And her eyes were wild."

"I have met with women whom I really think would like to be married to a poem and to be given away by a novel."

"I feel more and more every day, as my imagination strengthens, that I do not live in this world alone, but in a thousand worlds. ... I melt into the air with a voluptuousness so delicate, that I am content to be alone. Those things, combined with the opinion I have formed of the generality of women, who appear to me as children to whom I would rather give a sugar-plum than my time, form a barrier against matrimony which I rejoice in."

"Of all the stages in a woman’s life, none is so dangerous as the period between her acknowledgment of a passion for a man, and the day set apart for her nuptials."

"A young maiden's heart Is a rich soil, wherein lie many germs, Hid by the cunning hand of nature there To put forth blossoms in their fittest season; And tho' the love of home first breaks the soil, With its embracing tendrils clasping it, Other affections, strong and warm, will grow, While that one fades, as summer's flush of bloom Succeeds the gentle budding of the spring. Maids must be wives, and mothers, to fulfil Th' entire and holiest end of woman's being."

"Women who are (beyond all doubt) the mothers of all mischief, also nurse that babe to sleep, when he is too noisy."

"Why should I be my aunt, or me, or anyone? What similarities— boots, hands, the family voice I felt in my throat, or even the National Geographic and those awful hanging breasts— held us all together or made us all just one?"

"Oh, Woman! Woman! thou art formed to bless The heart of restless Man, to chase his care, And charm existence by thy loveliness; Bright as the sun-beam, as the morning fair, If but thy foot fall on a wilderness, Flowers spring, and shed their roseate blossoms there, Shrouding the thorns that on thy path-way rise, And scattering o'er it hues of Paradise! Thy voice of love is music to the ear, Soothing and soft, and gentle as the stream That strays 'mid summer flowers; thy glittering tear Is mutely eloquent; thy smile a beam Of light ineffable, so sweet, so dear, It wakes the heart from sorrow's darkest dream, Shedding a hallowed lustre o'er our fate, And when it beams we are not desolate!"

", n. An animal usually living in the vicinity of Man, and having a rudimentary susceptibility to domestication. It is credited by many of the elder zoologists with a certain vestigial docility acquired in a former state of seclusion, but naturalists of the postsusananthony period, having no knowledge of the seclusion, deny the virtue and declare that such as creation's dawn beheld, it roareth now. ... The popular name (wolfman) is incorrect, for the creature is of the cat kind. The woman is lithe and graceful in its movement, especially the American variety (felis pugnans), is omnivorous and can be taught not to talk. —Balthasar Pober"