WOMEN QUOTES XVI

quotations about women

To emancipate woman is to refuse to confine her to the relations she bears to man, not to deny them to her; let her have her independent existence and she will continue none the less to exist for him also: mutually recognising each other as subject, each will yet remain for the other an other. The reciprocity of their relations will not do away with the miracles -- desire, possession, love, dream, adventure -- worked by the division of human beings into two separate categories; and the words that move us -- giving, conquering, uniting -- will not lose their meaning. On the contrary, when we abolish the slavery of half of humanity, together with the whole system of hypocrisy that it implies, then the 'division' of humanity will reveal its genuine significance and the human couple will find its true form.

SIMONE DE BEAUVOIR

The Second Sex

Tags: Simone de Beauvoir


Women age early, and their mistake is not knowing where to hide all the time that lies behind them so that no one sees it. What are they to do, devour it like the umbilical cords of their children? Hell and damnation!

ELFRIEDE JELINEK

Lust

Tags: Elfriede Jelinek


Women don't require motives that are comprehensible to my intellectual processes.

REX STOUT

Three Doors to Death


Women use lovers as they do cards; they play with them a while, and when they have got all they can by them, throw them away, call for new ones, and then perhaps lose by the new all they got by the old ones.

ALEXANDER POPE

"Thoughts on Various Subjects"


A good woman's arms round a man's neck is a lifebelt thrown out to him from heaven.

JEROME K. JEROME

"A Charming Woman"

Tags: Jerome K. Jerome


Every physical quality admired by men in women is in direct connection with the manifold functions of women for the propagation of the species.

JAMES JOYCE

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Tags: James Joyce


They often say woman cannot keep a secret, but every woman in the world, like every man, has a hundred secrets in her own soul which she hides from even herself. The more respectable she is, the more certain it is the secrets exist.

AUSTIN O'MALLEY

Keystones of Thought

Tags: Austin O'Malley


To know a mature woman is to know more than her body. It is to know her dreams and her secrets. It is to know that a dance is a fight, and a fight is a dance, and that passion and compassion beat in the same breast.

DOUGLAS CARLTON ABRAMS

The Lost Diary of Don Juan

Tags: Douglas Carlton Abrams


I've always felt there are two things a woman should never do after the age of thirty-five: stand in natural light and have a baby.

ERMA BOMBECK

Family: The Ties that Bind ... and Gag!

Tags: Erma Bombeck


In Hollywood, the women are all peaches. It makes one long for an apple occasionally.

W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM

attributed, Great Hollywood Wit

Tags: W. Somerset Maugham


Men can sleep with a different woman every night and indulge in the most revolting practices--but let an unmarried woman make one mistake, be led astray when she's young and silly and knows nothing of the world, and she's tainted for life and called a harlot!

SUSANNE ALLEYN

Game of Patience


The spirit of Eve is strong in all her daughters.

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT

Rose in Bloom

Tags: Louisa May Alcott


The wings of high-flying women are still being clipped by sexist stereotypes.

CAROLINE CRIADO-PEREZ

The Guardian, February 10, 2016


These little women are very important, and those that appear to be the humblest, often assume great authority in their homes.

GASTON BACHELARD

The Poetics of Space

Tags: Gaston Bachelard


We still think of a powerful man as a born leader and a powerful woman as an anomaly.

MARGARET ATWOOD

The Advertiser, September 9, 2004

Tags: Margaret Atwood


Women are not allowed to be complicated in our society. We still very much have a Madonna-whore complex. We're comfortable seeing women as great mothers, and then we're comfortable seeing them as hookers, but there's no in-between.

CHARLIZE THERON

Glamour Magazine, July 2008

Tags: Charlize Theron


Ah! What pleasure it must be to a woman to suffer for the one she loves!

HONORE DE BALZAC

Père Goriot

Tags: Honore de Balzac


Any woman may act the part of a coquette successfully who has the reputation without the scruples of modesty. If a woman passes the bounds of propriety for our sakes, and throws herself unblushingly at our heads, we conclude it is either from a sudden and violent liking, or from extraordinary merit on our parts, either of which is enough to turn any man's head who has a single spark of gallantry or vanity in his composition.

WILLIAM HAZLITT

Characteristics

Tags: William Hazlitt


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

Tags: Marcel Proust


Man dreams of fame while woman wakes to love.

ALFRED TENNYSON

Idylls of the King

Tags: Alfred, Lord Tennyson