quotations about women
A man who from the beginning has long been soaked in the languid atmosphere of a woman, the scent of her hands, her bosom, her knees, her hair, her lithe and flowing clothes ... has acquired a delicacy of skin, a refinement of tone, a kind of androgyny without which the toughest and most virile of geniuses remains, when it comes to artistic perfection, an incomplete being.
CHARLES BAUDELAIRE
"Un mangeur d'opium"
The notion that women are less aesthetically profound and innovative than men--just not very important, if you know what I mean--doubtless spreads back to our beginnings as upright animals: the males hunted and killed for the family while the females stayed home in the cave and tended the strange little creatures they were giving birth to.
EDWARD ALBEE
Stretching My Mind
Women complain about premenstrual syndrome, but I think of it as the only time of the month that I can be myself.
ROSEANNE BARR
attributed, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Health Fair
A woman is essentially a vessel made to be filled.
JOSÉ SARAMAGO
Baltasar and Blimunda
A woman does not spend all her time in buying things; she spends part of it in taking them back.
EDGAR WATSON HOWE
Country Town Sayings
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
It is possible, reading standard histories, to forget half the population of the country. The explorers were men, the landholders and merchants men, the political leaders men, the military figures men. The very invisibility of women, the overlooking of women, is a sign of their submerged status.
HOWARD ZINN
A People's History of the United States
Woman! when I behold thee flippant, vain,
Inconstant, childish, proud, and full of fancies.
JOHN KEATS
"Woman! When I Behold Thee"
Your anatomy is a mystery that nobody bothers explaining to us. Even when we think we have mastered one woman's body, every body is different.
CHRIS ABANI
"What Men Aren't Telling Us", O Magazine, July 2008
The finest compliment that can be paid to a woman of sense is to address her as such.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
The woman who thinks meanly of herself is any man's purchase.
SAMUEL RICHARDSON
Pamela
There are women who never had an intrigue; but there are scarce any who never had but one.
FRANÇOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD
Moral Maxims
I think it says that women are tired of being left behind, having to wait their turn for the men.
YOLIE FLORES
"Half the candidates in L.A.'s congressional race are women: Trump was wake-up call", Los Angeles Times, April 3, 2017
In oranges and women courage is often mistaken for insanity.
SALLY ROBINSON
Iron Jawed Angels
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
Because a woman brought death
a bright Maiden overcame it,
and so the highest blessing
in all of creation
lies in the form of a woman,
since God has become man
in a sweet and blessed Virgin.
HILDEGARD OF BINGEN
"Quia ergo femina"
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
Most fashionable ladies are as diamonds because they are more costly than useful.
WILLIAM SCOTT DOWNEY
Proverbs
Modesty is the richest ornament of a woman ... the want of it is her greatest deformity.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON
Lacon
The much-quoted immaculate conception of the Virgin Mary occurred but once so that the world might know that Almighty God, when He so chooses, has no need of men, though He cannot dispense with women.
JOSÉ SARAMAGO
Baltasar and Blimunda