Women

"Today, women make up about half our workforce, but they still make 77 cents for every dollar a man earns. That is wrong, and in 2014, it's an embarrassment. Women deserve equal pay for equal work."

"I am convinced that our daughters can contribute just as much to society as our sons. Our common prosperity will be advanced by allowing all humanity – men and women – to reach their full potential."

"A crowd of women around me doing the ocean of women’s work that never subsided and never changed and always swallowed whatever time you gave it and wanted more, another hungry body of water. I submerged into it like a ritual bath and let it close over my head gladly."

"On aime plus âprement que l'on ne hait."

"Women crave for being loved, not for loving. They scream out at you for sympathy all day long, they are incapable of giving any in return, for they cannot remember your affairs long enough to do so."

"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."

"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."

"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."

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

"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."

"The happiness of man is: I will. The happiness of woman is: he wills."

"One way to a girl's mind is through her cunt."

"... 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."

"So I wonder a woman, the Mistress of Hearts, Should ascend to aspire to be Master of Arts; A Ministering Angel in Woman we see, And an Angel need cover no other Degree. —O why should a Woman not get a Degree?"

"Women would rather be right than reasonable."

"Sure, deck your lower limbs in pants; Yours are the limbs, my sweeting. You look divine as you advance— Have you seen yourself retreating?"

"A girl whose cheeks are covered with paint Has an advantage with me over one whose ain't."

"Women receive too much consideration in France. They should not be regarded as the equals of men; they are, in fact, mere machines to make children."

"A penniless lass wi' a lang pedigree."

"Quasi pila in choro ludens datatim dat se et communem facit. Alii adnutat, alii adnictat, alium amat alium tenet. Alibi manus est occupata, alii pervellit pedem; anulum dat alii spectandum, a labris alium invoeat, cum alio cantat, at tamen alii suo dat digito litteras."

"Desubito famam tollunt si quam solam videre in via."

"I think being a woman is like being Irish ... Everyone says you’re important and nice, but you take second place all the same."

"If they were not fundamentally evil, they would not have been born as women at all."

"Never shall a nation prosper that has given a woman charge of its affairs."

"O Prophet! Tell thy wives and thy daughters and the women of the believers to draw their cloaks close round them (when they go abroad). That will be better, so that they may be recognised and not annoyed."

"O ye wives of the Prophet! Ye are not like any other women. If ye keep your duty (to Allah), then be not soft of speech, lest he in whose heart is a disease aspire (to you), but utter customary speech. And stay in your houses. Bedizen not yourselves with the bedizenment of the Time of Ignorance. Be regular in prayer, and pay the poor-due, and obey Allah and His messenger. Allah's wish is but to remove uncleanness far from you, O Folk of the Household, and cleanse you with a thorough cleansing."

"Tell the believing women to lower their gaze and be modest, and to display of their adornment only that which is apparent, and to draw their veils over their bosoms, and not to reveal their adornment save to their own husbands or fathers or husbands' fathers, or their sons or their husbands' sons, or their brothers or their brothers' sons or sisters' sons, or their women, or their slaves, or male attendants who lack vigour, or children who know naught of women's nakedness. And let them not stamp their feet so as to reveal what they hide of their adornment."

"Men are in charge of women, because Allah hath made the one of them to excel the other, and because they spend of their property (for the support of women). So good women are the obedient, guarding in secret that which Allah hath guarded. As for those from whom ye fear rebellion, admonish them and banish them to beds apart, and scourge them. Then if they obey you, seek not a way against them."

"O ye who believe! It is not lawful for you forcibly to inherit the women (of your deceased kinsmen), nor (that) ye should put constraint upon them that ye may take away a part of that which ye have given them, unless they be guilty of flagrant lewdness. But consort with them in kindness, for if ye hate them it may happen that ye hate a thing wherein Allah hath placed much good."

"It is made lawful for you to go unto your wives on the night of the fast. They are raiment for you and ye are raiment for them."

"There sat a woman, whose wet tresses rolled On to the floor in waves of gleaming gold, Cast back from such a form as, erewhile shown To one poor shepherd, lighted up Troy town."

"My lady seems of ivory Forehead, straight nose, and cheeks that be Hollow'd a little mournfully. Beata mea Domina!"

"The influence of woman was, is, and ever will be exercised, directly or indirectly, in good or in evil! It is a part of the scheme of nature. Give her then the lights she is capable of receiving; educate her (whatever her station) for taking her part in society. Her ignorance has often made her interference fatal: her knowledge, never."

"Wet or dry, you're the handsomest woman I ever did see. Spirit and a fine sturdy body. It's a noble combination, Miss Prescott. Why, for you, child bearin' would come as easy as rollin' off a log."

"The prevailing manners of an age depend more than we are aware, or are willing to allow, on the conduct of the women: this is one of the principal hinges on which the great machine of human society turns."

"For if a young lady has that discretion and modesty, without which all knowledge is little worth, she will never make an ostentatious parade of it, because she will rather be intent on acquiring more, than on displaying what she has."

"My only books Were woman's looks, And folly's all they've taught me."

"Disguise our bondage as we will, 'Tis woman, woman rules us still."

"But from the hoop’s bewitching round, Her very shoe has power to wound."

"The maid who modestly conceals Her beauties, while she hides, reveals; Give but a glimpse, and fancy draws Whate’er the Grecian Venus was."

"Can’t I another’s face commend, And to her virtues be a friend, But instantly your forehead lours, As if her merit lessen’d yours?"

"She was a sharp-jawed, pout-lipped maiden and her eyes were green as scum."

"A Carvalho le molestaba tomar el sol como un lagarto, Pero Teresa demostraba una gran solidaridad con el termostato habitual en todas las mujeres, animales de sangre fría que necesitan el sol y son capaces de someterse a sus rayos con la beatífica expresión del comulgante o incluso con el éxtasis del mistico dispuesto a la entrega divina."

"Une femme a toujours une vengeance prête."

"Une femme d'esprit est un diable en intrigue."

"La femme est toujours femme, et jamais ne sera que femme, tant qu'entier le monde durera."

"The female idiocy is not only present, but also necessary, it is not only a physiological fact, but also a physiological postulate. If we want a woman who completely fulfills her maternal profession, she cannot have a male brain. If it could be made that the female faculties would be developed equally to the male ones, the mother organs would atrophy and we would have an ugly and useless hermaphrodite before us. ... Modern foolish women are bad breeders and bad mothers. In the degree to which "civilization" grows, fertility decreases. The better schools become, the worse maternity beds become, the lower the milk secretion becomes, in short, the more unfit the women become."

""Always be civil to the girls, you never know whom they may marry" is an aphorism which has saved many an English spinster from being treated like an Indian widow."