quotations about women
A woman needn't be dragged down by her functions.
D. H. LAWRENCE
Lady Chatterley's Lover
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
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
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
The only way to win a wench is not to woo her; the only way to have her fast is to have her loose.
THOMAS DEKKER
Blurt, Master Constable
Modesty is the richest ornament of a woman ... the want of it is her greatest deformity.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON
Lacon
A woman is essentially a vessel made to be filled.
JOSÉ SARAMAGO
Baltasar and Blimunda
Women are like those blinkin' little Greek islands, places to call at but not to stay.
STACY AUMONIER
"The Great Unimpressionable", The Golden Windmill and Other Stories
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
Most fashionable ladies are as diamonds because they are more costly than useful.
WILLIAM SCOTT DOWNEY
Proverbs
You've heard it before, but are afraid to say it aloud for fear of sounding boastful. Southern women are prettier than others. But wait just a cotton pickin' minute. Is it true? Are we really prettier? I'll let you in on a little secret. We're not. Everyone just has that illusion because the truth is, we only try harder. Our secret weapon for loveliness, passed down by generations of Southern ladies, is our ability to make the best out of what we have, or in other words, "effort."
LESLIE ANNE TARABELLA
"Are Southern women prettier?", AL, April 3, 2017
Women ... I mean, they are the other half of the sky, and without them there is nothing. And without us there's nothing. There's only the two together creating children, creating society.
JOHN LENNON
interview, KFRC RKO Radio, December 8, 1980
When my son said, "I can't stop thinking about girls," I said, "That's not gonna stop. Congratulations. You're in the club. From now until the day you die, one way or another you'll be thinking about girls."
PAUL REISER
Good Housekeeping, June 2011
What, then, is feminine as contrasted with masculine? what is womanly as compared with manly, whether in literature or in life? Men and women have many qualities in common, and resemble more than they differ from each other. But while, speaking generally, the man's main occupations lie abroad, the woman's main occupation is at home. He has to deal with public and collective interests; she has to do with private and individual interests. We need not go so far as to say, with Kingsley, that man must work and woman must weep; but at least he has to fight and to struggle, she has to solace and to heal. Ambition, sometimes high, sometimes low, but still ambition--ambition and success are the main motives and purpose of his life. Her noblest ambition is to foster domestic happiness, to bring comfort to the afflicted, and to move with unostentatious but salutary step over the vast territory of human affection. While man busies himself with the world of politics, with the world of commerce, with the rise and fall of empires, with the fortunes and fate of humanity, woman tends the hearth, visits the sick, consoles the suffering--in a word, in all she does, fulfils the sacred offices of love.
ALFRED AUSTIN
The Bridling of Pegasus
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
The woman is the man's glory, and she naturally delights in the praises which are assurances that she is fulfilling her function; and she gives herself to him who succeeds in convincing her that she, of all others, is best able to discharge it for him. A woman without this kind of "vanity" is a monster.
COVENTRY PATMORE
The Rod, the Root, and the Flower
Somehow, everyone hates to see an unusually pretty girl get married. It is like taking a bite out of a very fine-looking peach.
EDGAR WATSON HOWE
Country Town Sayings
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 are so sensitive, darling. They have to be. They have to be aware what a man wants, what their children want. They have antennae all over them, whiskers of feeling. And unfortunately that has a down side. It means they get hurt.
TANITH LEE
Hunting the Shadows
No man can have a reasonable opinion of women until he has long lost interest in hair-restorers.
AUSTIN O'MALLEY
Keystones of Thought