quotations about women
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
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Proverbs
A woman, like a cross-eyed man, looks one way, but goes another--hence her mysteriousness.
AUSTIN O'MALLEY
Keystones of Thought
Those philosophers who believe in the absolute logic of truth have never had to discuss it on close terms with a woman.
CESARE PAVESE
This Business of Living, February 19, 1937
If a woman's got nothing but her fair fame to feed on, why, it's thin tack, and a donkey would die of it!
D. H. LAWRENCE
Sons and Lovers
Don't tell me about God having made such creatures to be companions for us! I don't say but He might make Eve to be a companion for Adam in Paradise--there was no cooking to be spoilt there, and no other woman to cackle with and make mischief; though you see what mischief she did as soon as she'd an opportunity.
GEORGE ELIOT
Adam Bede
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
The spirit of Eve is strong in all her daughters.
LOUISA MAY ALCOTT
Rose in Bloom
Certainly, it is more reasonable to devote one's life to women than to postage stamps or old snuff-boxes, even to pictures or statues. But the example of other collections should be a warning to us to diversify, to have not one woman only but several.
MARCEL PROUST
The Guermantes Way
Great ladies ... are like the best sauces -- it is better not to know how they are made.
OCTAVE MIRBEAU
The Diary of a Chambermaid
Because I am a woman, I must make unusual efforts to succeed. If I fail, no one will say, "She doesn't have what it takes"; They will say, "Women don't have what it takes."
CLARE BOOTHE LUCE
attributed, On Being Blonde: Wit and Wisdom from the World's Most Infamous Blondes
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
Where neither love nor hatred is in the game, a woman's game is mediocre.
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE
Beyond Good and Evil
A woman's lot is made for her by the love she accepts.
GEORGE ELIOT
Felix Holt
Woman is the salvation or destruction of the family. She carries its destinies in the folds of her mantle.
HENRI-FREDERIC AMIEL
journal, December 11, 1872
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
There is nothing in the female sex more graceful or becoming than Modesty. It adds charm to their beauty, and gives a new softness to their sex. Without it simplicity and innocence appear rude; reading and good sense, masculine; wit and humour, lascivious. This is so necessary a quality for pleasing, that the loose part of the sex, whose study it is to ensnare men's hearts, never fail to support the appearance of what they know is essential to that end.
WELLINS CALCOTT
Thoughts Moral and Divine
While women once acquired relationship skills to "hook," "snare," or "catch" a husband who would provide access to economic security and social status, the position of contemporary women has not changed that radically. Much of our success still depends on our attunement to "male culture," our ability to please men, and our readiness to conform to the masculine values of our institutions.
HARRIET LERNER
The Dance of Intimacy: A Woman's Guide to Courageous Acts of Change in Key Relationships
What a thing of fantasy a woman may become after dusk.
HONORE DE BALZAC
Ferragus, chef des Dévorants
While a woman is losing confidence in a man she is usually reposing it in another.
LEWIS F. KORNS
Thoughts
I have always found the female of the human species many times more difficult to understand than the male.
OSAMU DAZAI
No Longer Human