WOMEN QUOTES XVII

quotations about women

As such portraits as we have are almost invariably of the male sex, who strut more prominently across the stage, it seems worthwhile to take as a model one of those many women who cluster in the shade. For a study of history and biography convinces any right minded person that these obscure figures occupy a place not unlike that of the showman's hand in the dance of the marionettes; and the finger is laid upon the heart.

VIRGINIA WOOLF

"Phyllis and Rosamond", The Complete Shorter Fiction of Virginia Woolf

Tags: Virginia Woolf


Woman must not depend upon the protection of man, but must be taught to protect herself.

SUSAN B. ANTHONY

speech in San Francisco, July 1871

Tags: Susan B. Anthony


Centuries roll, customs change, but, ever since the time of the earliest mother, woman yearns to be the soother.

EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON

Pausanias, the Spartan

Tags: Edward Bylwer Lytton


The original oppression of Woman was based on crude denigration. She caused Man to fall, so she became a scapegoat. No, not a scapegoat which might be blameless but a culprit richly deserving of whatever suffering Man chose thereafter to heap on her. That is Woman in the Book of Genesis. Out here, our ancestors, without the benefit of hearing about the Old Testament, made the very same story differing only in local color. At first the Sky was very close to the Earth. But every evening Woman cut off a piece of the Sky to put in her soup pot, or in another version, she repeatedly banged the top end of her pestle carelessly against the Sky whenever she pounded millet or, as in yet another rendering -- so prodigious is Man's inventiveness, she wiped her kitchen hands in the Sky's face. Whatever the detail of Woman's provocation, the Sky moved away in anger, and God with it.

CHINUA ACHEBE

Anthills of the Savannah

Tags: Chinua Achebe


Man dreams of fame while woman wakes to love.

ALFRED TENNYSON

Idylls of the King

Tags: Alfred, Lord Tennyson


The burning gaze of a young woman, such as hath tasted man, shall not escape me; for I have a spirit keen to mark these things.

AESCHYLUS

fragment, Toxotides

Tags: Aeschylus


See, I will always have this penchant for what I call kamikaze women. I call them kamikazes because they, you know they crash their plane, they're self-destructive. But they crash into you, and you die along with them.

WOODY ALLEN

Husbands and Wives

Tags: Woody Allen


Women are women and can't help themselves.

WILLIAM JOHN LOCKE

The Red Planet

Tags: William John Locke


When women express darker emotions, they are told to calm down, that their emotions are simply the result of "their time of the month," or that the emotional frustration they feel is not based in a rational (i.e., masculine) worldview. While men's emotional expression is marginalized as feminine, women's emotional expression is infantilized. It is in this repressed emotional space that the alarming sense of being gaslighted can emerge for women.

MARK GREENE

"Women Are Better At Expressing Emotions, Right? Why It's Not That Simple", Yes Magazine, January 27, 2016


If you're a woman, it's almost impossible to establish a relationship. You're too much for everybody. It's too much. The woman always has to play this role of being fragile and dependent. And if you're not, they're fascinated by you, but only for a little while. And then they want to change you and crush you. And then they leave.

MARINA ABRAMOVIC

The Guardian, May 12, 2014

Tags: Marina Abramovic


I had long since given up trying to extract from a woman as it were the square root of her unknown quantity, the mystery of which a mere introduction was generally enough to dispel.

MARCEL PROUST

Sodom and Gomorrah

Tags: Marcel Proust


If you want to stay single, look for a perfect woman.

KEN ALSTAD

Savvy Sayin's

Tags: Ken Alstad


The Madonna-Whore complex refers to the tendency to make a distinction between good, pure girls or the "Madonnas," and bad, desirable girls or the "Whores." This idea, however, requires there be a distinction between women you respect and women you desire while insisting they can't be both. Somehow, people still can't shake the idea women's respectability is contingent on their adherence to puritan values that equate "goodness" with being quiet, submissive, virginally pure and modest.

JULIA O'DONNELL

"Women are so much more than just sisters, mothers, wives", The Badger Herald, March 14, 2017


A woman's beauty does not belong to her alone. It is part of the bounty she brings into the world. She has a duty to share it.

J. M. COETZEE

Disgrace

Tags: J. M. Coetzee


Ah! What pleasure it must be to a woman to suffer for the one she loves!

HONORE DE BALZAC

Père Goriot

Tags: Honore de Balzac


Women ... have long been discouraged from the awareness and forthright expression of anger. Sugar and spice are the ingredients from which we are made. We are the nurturers, the soothers, the peacemakers, and the steadiers of rocked boats.

HARRIET LERNER

The Dance of Anger: A Woman's Guide to Changing the Patterns of Intimate Relationships

Tags: Harriet Lerner


If a woman's got nothing but her fair fame to feed on, why, it's thin tack, and a donkey would die of it!

D. H. LAWRENCE

Sons and Lovers

Tags: D. H. Lawrence


Those philosophers who believe in the absolute logic of truth have never had to discuss it on close terms with a woman.

CESARE PAVESE

This Business of Living, February 19, 1937


A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle.

U2

"Tryin' to Throw Your Arms Around the World"

Tags: U2


Oh! too convincing -- dangerously dear --
In woman's eye the unanswerable tear!

LORD BYRON

The Corsair

Tags: Lord Byron