quotations about women
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
Womanliness means only motherhood;
All love begins and ends there.
ROBERT BROWNING
The Inn Album
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
'Of womenkind such indeed is the love,
Or the word love abused,
Under which many childish desires
And conceits are excused.
SIR WALTER RALEIGH
As Ye Came from the Holy Land
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
He who desires a lifetime of happiness with a beautiful woman desires to enjoy the taste of wine by keeping his mouth always full of it.
GEORGE BERNARD SHAW
Maxims for Revolutionists
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
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
The younger and healthier a woman is and the more her new and glossy body seems destined for eternal freshness, the less useful is artifice; but the carnal weakness of this prey that man takes and its ominous deterioration always have to be hidden from him ... In any case, the more traits and proportions of a woman seem contrived, the more she delighted the heart of man because she seemed to escape the metamorphosis of natural things. The result is this strange paradox that by desiring to grasp nature, but transfigured, in woman, man destines her to artifice.
SIMONE DE BEAUVOIR
The Second Sex
Two women seldom grow intimate but at the expense of a third person; they make friendships as kings of old made leagues, who sacrificed some poor animal betwixt them, and commenced strict allies; so the ladies, after they have pulled some character to pieces, are from henceforth inviolable friends.
ALEXANDER POPE
"Thoughts on Various Subjects"
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
I think it's time we women stopped carrying supplies for the entire family. If children don't have room to carry their own toys, if men don't have pockets in their pants, tougho.
ERMA BOMBECK
Forever, Erma
The education and empowerment of women throughout the world cannot fail to result in a more caring, tolerant, just and peaceful life for all.
AUNG SAN SUU KYI
Keynote Address at NGO Forum on Women, Beijing China, August 31, 1995
The heart of a coquette, like the tail of a lizard, always grows again after she has lost it.
ELIZA COOK
Diamond Dust
When a woman gets over 35 she is generally willing to embark on the sea of matrimony with almost any life-buoy.
ROBERT ELLIOTT GONZALES
Poems and Paragraphs
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
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
Women are not for using. Women are for loving.
KEVIN LEMAN
Sex Begins in the Kitchen
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
Women are the backbone of this country. We do it all -- we are the most organized and compassionate workers -- and we do it knowing our counterparts are paid more.
TONYA MURRAY
Los Angeles Times, March 8, 2017