WOMEN QUOTES XVI

quotations about women

We still think of a powerful man as a born leader and a powerful woman as an anomaly.

MARGARET ATWOOD

The Advertiser, September 9, 2004

Tags: Margaret Atwood


The woman born to physical subjection and degradation can never seek or use knowledge as her birthright. Never till she holds her sex in honor, as man holds his, can she be his equal, even in her own realm.

MARY CLEMMER AMES

Outlines of Men, Women, and Things

Tags: Mary Clemmer Ames


Let men tremble to win the hand of woman, unless they win along with it the utmost passion of her heart.

NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

The Scarlet Letter

Tags: Nathaniel Hawthorne


Women don't require motives that are comprehensible to my intellectual processes.

REX STOUT

Three Doors to Death


The wings of high-flying women are still being clipped by sexist stereotypes.

CAROLINE CRIADO-PEREZ

The Guardian, February 10, 2016


If thou makest a statement concerning women, lo, she shall immediately try to disprove it straightway. She goeth by contraries.

GELETT BURGESS

The Maxims of Methuselah


Don't tell me about God having made such creatures to be companions for us! I don't say but He might make Eve to be a companion for Adam in Paradise--there was no cooking to be spoilt there, and no other woman to cackle with and make mischief; though you see what mischief she did as soon as she'd an opportunity.

GEORGE ELIOT

Adam Bede


A woman in Deep Sleep is one who goes about in an unconscious state. She seems unaware or unfazed by the truth of her own female life, the truth about women in general, the way women and the feminine have been wounded, devalued, and limited within culture, churches, and families. She cannot see the wound or feel the pain. She has never acknowledged, much less confronted, sexism within the church, biblical interpretations, or Christian doctrine. Okay, so women have been largely missing from positions of church power, we've been silenced and relegated to positions of subordination by biblical interpretations and doctrine, and God has been represented to us as exclusively male. So what? The woman in Deep Sleep is oblivious to the psychological and spiritual impact this has had on her. Or maybe she has some awareness of it all but keeps it sequestered nicely in her head, rarely allowing it to move down into her heart or into the politics of her spirituality.

SUE MONK KIDD

The Dance of the Dissident Daughter


Men can sleep with a different woman every night and indulge in the most revolting practices--but let an unmarried woman make one mistake, be led astray when she's young and silly and knows nothing of the world, and she's tainted for life and called a harlot!

SUSANNE ALLEYN

Game of Patience


I've always felt there are two things a woman should never do after the age of thirty-five: stand in natural light and have a baby.

ERMA BOMBECK

Family: The Ties that Bind ... and Gag!

Tags: Erma Bombeck


The spirit of Eve is strong in all her daughters.

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT

Rose in Bloom

Tags: Louisa May Alcott


Nymphomaniac: a woman as obsessed with sex as an average man.

MIGNON MCLAUGHLIN

The Neurotic's Notebook

Tags: Mignon McLaughlin


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


In Hollywood, the women are all peaches. It makes one long for an apple occasionally.

W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM

attributed, Great Hollywood Wit

Tags: W. Somerset Maugham


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


To know a mature woman is to know more than her body. It is to know her dreams and her secrets. It is to know that a dance is a fight, and a fight is a dance, and that passion and compassion beat in the same breast.

DOUGLAS CARLTON ABRAMS

The Lost Diary of Don Juan

Tags: Douglas Carlton Abrams


These little women are very important, and those that appear to be the humblest, often assume great authority in their homes.

GASTON BACHELARD

The Poetics of Space

Tags: Gaston Bachelard


Every physical quality admired by men in women is in direct connection with the manifold functions of women for the propagation of the species.

JAMES JOYCE

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Tags: James Joyce


Woman loves or hates: she knows no middle course.

PUBLILIUS SYRUS

The Moral Sayings of Publilius Syrus


There are two races of people -- men and women -- no matter what women's libbers would have you pretend. The male is motivated by toys and science because men are born with no purpose in the universe except to procreate. There is lots of time to kill beyond that. They've got to find work. Men have no inherent center to themselves beyond procreating. Women, however, are born with a center. They can create the universe, mother it, teach it, nurture it. Men read science fiction to build the future. Women don't need to read it. They are the future.

RAY BRADBURY

Playboy, 1996

Tags: Ray Bradbury