quotations about women
Grab a woman. Help the movement. Liberate a woman tonight. You'll get stale out here in the woods, living like a bear. Your balls will shrink, your tongue grow stiff and heavy. Your mind will wither away. Whatever became of William Gatlin? Went mad flogging his bloody duff.
EDWARD ABBEY
The Serpents of Paradise
Women are women and can't help themselves.
WILLIAM JOHN LOCKE
The Red Planet
We never see the mass of women en costume, without being reminded of the artificial flies used in angling--tricked out, also, with much the same object, only that, like St. Peter, women are "fishers of men."
CHARLES WILLIAM DAY
The Maxims, Experiences, and Observations of Agogos
As such portraits as we have are almost invariably of the male sex, who strut more prominently across the stage, it seems worthwhile to take as a model one of those many women who cluster in the shade. For a study of history and biography convinces any right minded person that these obscure figures occupy a place not unlike that of the showman's hand in the dance of the marionettes; and the finger is laid upon the heart.
VIRGINIA WOOLF
"Phyllis and Rosamond", The Complete Shorter Fiction of Virginia Woolf
The imaginative estimate or ideal conception of Woman by the Poets has always been deemed exceptionally interesting, especially by women themselves, for, as a rule, it is agreeable; and, even if the presentation be sometimes a little overcharged with glowing colour, all of us, men and women alike, are not otherwise than pleased with descriptions that portray us, not exactly as we are, but as we should like to be. Withal, a portrait, to obtain recognition, must have in it some resemblance to the original; and, speaking in the most prosaic manner, one need not hesitate to affirm that any representation of women, at least of womanly women, that was not attractive would be a travesty of the fact.
ALFRED AUSTIN
The Bridling of Pegasus
It took him a moment to respond to the unguarded sweetness of her smile, her body calculated to a millimeter to suggest a bud yet guarantee a flower.
F. SCOTT FITZGERALD
Tender Is the Night
I had long since given up trying to extract from a woman as it were the square root of her unknown quantity, the mystery of which a mere introduction was generally enough to dispel.
MARCEL PROUST
Sodom and Gomorrah
For one to admire a woman merely for her beauty, is to love the building for its exterior; but to love one for the greatness of her soul, is to appreciate the tenement for its intrinsic value.
WILLIAM SCOTT DOWNEY
Proverbs
Centuries roll, customs change, but, ever since the time of the earliest mother, woman yearns to be the soother.
EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON
Pausanias, the Spartan
Ah! What pleasure it must be to a woman to suffer for the one she loves!
HONORE DE BALZAC
Père Goriot
A woman's heart is much like the moon, always changing but always has a man in it.
GRENVILLE KLEISER
Dictionary of Proverbs
Woman is the heart of humanity ... its grace, ornament, and solace.
SAMUEL SMILES
Character
Women have served all these centuries as looking-glasses possessing the magic and delicious power of reflecting the figure of man at twice its natural size.
VIRGINIA WOOLF
A Room of One's Own
A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle.
U2
"Tryin' to Throw Your Arms Around the World"
It has been our experience that women usually prefer thin, undernourished, flatchested females, dressed to the teeth, as a concept of "feminine beauty" -- and that men prefer exactly the opposite: voluptuous, well-rounded and undressed. The women's idealization of woman is actually a male counterpart, competing with man in society; man's view of women is far more truly feminine.
HUGH HEFNER
The Realist, May, 1961
Any but the most brutish of men must be touched with a certain awe or wonder at the baring of a woman's naked soul.
ROBERT E. HOWARD
The Hour of the Dragon
Oh! too convincing -- dangerously dear --
In woman's eye the unanswerable tear!
LORD BYRON
The Corsair
Yesterday woman was a chattel. Now she is, in law, a minor. Tomorrow she will be free, or partially so--that is to say, as free as man.
ELBERT HUBBARD
The American Bible
If you want to stay single, look for a perfect woman.
KEN ALSTAD
Savvy Sayin's
It is usual for a woman, even though she may ardently desire to give herself to a man, to feign reluctance, to simulate alarm or indignation. She must be brought to consent by urgent pleading, by lies, adjurations, and promises. I know that only professional prostitutes are accustomed to answer such an invitation with a perfectly frank assent -- prostitutes, or simple-minded, immature girls.
STEFAN ZWEIG
Letter from an Unknown Woman