quotations about women
If you tell anything to a woman ... it's like putting it in the papers.
IVAN KLIMA
Waiting for the Dark, Waiting for the Light
A woman with a voice is by definition a strong woman. But the search to find that voice can be remarkably difficult.
MELINDA GATES
Woman's Day Magazine, October 2, 2007
Too credulous a woman's longing flies
And spreading swiftly, swiftly dies.
AESCHYLUS
Agamemnon
A goodlookin horse is like a goodlookin woman.... They're always more trouble than what they're worth. What a man needs is just one that will get the job done.
CORMAC MCCARTHY
All the Pretty Horses
Women have been called queens for a long time, but the kingdom given them isn't worth ruling.
LOUISA MAY ALCOTT
An Old-Fashioned Girl
The women are, of course, the biggest single group of oppressed people in the world and, if we are to believe the Book of Genesis, the very oldest.
CHINUA ACHEBE
Anthills of the Savannah
That's the nature of women ... not to love when we love them, and to love when we love them not.
MIGUEL DE CERVANTES
Don Quixote
Seen through the glow of a building orgasm, a woman seems to blaze with angelic glory.
LARRY NIVEN
Ringworld
Women are cats ... and love to scratch even those they're fond of. Sometimes the more they love them the harder they scratch.
WILLIAM JOHN LOCKE
Septimus
Women don't want to hear what you think. Women want to hear what they think -- in a deeper voice.
BILL COSBY
attributed, The Best Book of Useless Information Ever
Everywhere there is pleasure you will find a woman in disguise.
JEAN BAUDRILLARD
Cool Memories
What a woman thinks of women is the test of her nature.
GEORGE MEREDITH
Diana of the Crossways
With other women he had not been able to touch their flesh without experiencing the desire to devour it, as though ravenous with an abominable hunger to butcher them. But this one, could he then love her, and not kill her?
ÉMILE ZOLA
La Bête Humaine
Whatever may be thought of "woman's sphere," it is certain that its boundaries have been steadily enlarged; that an increased liberty, not only of secular employments and civil rights, but also of social intercourse, has been accorded to her with increasing civilization; and that, so far from losing, either in the delicacy and refinement of her own character, or in the chivalric homage paid to her by man, she has gained in both respects in the same ratio in which she has been freed from the trammels of an unnatural conventionalism, and elevated to a position of real equality with the dominant sex.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Old Testament Shadows of New Testament Truths
Most fashionable ladies are as diamonds because they are more costly than useful.
WILLIAM SCOTT DOWNEY
Proverbs
As one person at the dinner table leans back, stretches, and opens their mouth in a gaping yawn, others will soon follow suit. Catching a yawn is more likely to occur between relatives than strangers, and scientists believe it's a sign of empathy. Plus, other social primates like chimps and bonobos do it, too. A new study suggests that women (traditionally branded the more empathetic sex) might be more susceptible to copycat yawning than men. Researchers surreptitiously analyzed more than 4000 real-world yawns on planes and trains, in restaurants, and in offices. They noted when someone yawned, and then whether a nearby acquaintance or friend did the same within a 3-minute period. Men and women spontaneously yawned with about the same frequency. But when someone else yawned first, women were more likely than men to follow suit. Women picked up yawns about 55% of the time, whereas men only did so 40% of the time.
LAUREL HAMERS
"Women are more empathetic than men, yawning study suggests", Science Mag, February 2, 2016
Women themselves condition their daughters to serve the system of male primacy. If a daughter challenges it, the mother will generally defend the system rather than her daughter. These mothers, victims themselves, have unwittingly become wounded wounders. Women need to attack culture's oppression of women, for there truly is a godlike socializing power that induces women to "buy in" or collude, but we also need to confront our own part in accepting male dominance and take responsibility where appropriate.
SUE MONK KIDD
The Dance of the Dissident Daughter
Daughters of the attitude that produced them, certain women will not appeal to us without the double bed in which we find peace by their side, while others, to be caressed with a more secret intention, require leaves blown by the wind, water rippling in the dark, things as light and fleeting as they are.
MARCEL PROUST
The Guermantes Way
Speak no evil of women; I tell thee the meanest of them deserves our respect; for of women do we not all come?
PEDRO CALDERON DE LA BARCA
The Mayor of Zalamea
He who has found a good wife has found great happiness, but a quarrelsome woman is like a roof that lets in the rain.
ANDRÉ MAUROIS
The Silence of Colonel Bramble