“I do not know why a girl should be expected to talk well till she is at least twenty. There cannot be much in her, she may be prettily exacting, or charmingly modest, but her attractions must be personal, not intellectual.”

— Jean Ingelow

Source: Off the Skelligs: A Novel (1872), Ch. 12, p. 188.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update July 1, 2022. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "I do not know why a girl should be expected to talk well till she is at least twenty. There cannot be much in her, she …" by Jean Ingelow?

Jean Ingelow 39

British writer 1820–1897

Related quotes

“Trust a girl of sixteen for knowing well if she is pretty; concerning her plainness she may be ignorant.”

Elizabeth Gaskell book Mary Barton

Mary Barton, ch. 3 (1848)

“Voodoo girl

But she knows she has a curse on her,
a curse she cannot win.
For if someone gets too close to her,
the pins stick farther in.”

Tim Burton (1958) American filmmaker

Variant: But she knows she has a curse on her,
a curse she cannot win.
For if someone gets too close to her,

the pins stick further in.
Source: The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy and Other Stories

“A girl should not expect special privileges because of her sex but neither should she 'adjust' to prejudice and discrimination.”

Betty Friedan book The Feminine Mystique

Source: The Feminine Mystique (1963), Ch. 14 "A New Life Plan for women".

“I was reading Dorothy Dix this afternoon; she says that it is permissible for a young man to tell a girl he knows fairly well that she has pretty ankles; from this I assume that the better he knows her the higher he may praise her.”

Robertson Davies (1913–1995) Canadian journalist, playwright, professor, critic, and novelist

The Table Talk of Samuel Marchbanks (1949)

“Teach her that the idea of 'gender roles' is absolute nonsense. Do not ever tell her that she should or should not do something because she is a girl.
'Because you are a girl' is never reason for anything.
Ever.”

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (1977) Nigerian writer

Source: Dear Ijeawele, or a Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions

“Why com'st thou like a girl with blubber'd eyes,
Who running by her busie mother cries
To be ta'en up, and by her garments holds,
Till she the fondling in her arms infolds.”

John Ogilby (1600–1676) Scottish academic

Book XVI
Homer His Iliads Translated (1660)

“And very obedient to me she was when a little child, before you took her in hand and spoiled her, by filling her head with a pack of court notions. Why—why—why—did I not overhear you telling her she must behave like a princess? You have made a Whig of the girl!”

Henry Fielding (1707–1754) English novelist and dramatist

“Her majesty, being now in possession of her imperial crown and estate pertaining to it, cannot forsake that faith that the whole world knows her to have followed and practiced since her birth; she desires, rather, by God's grace, to preserve it till her death; and she desires greatly that her subjects may come to embrace the same faith quietly and with charity, whereby she shall receive great happiness.”

Mary I of England (1516–1558) Queen of England and Ireland

Proclamation concerning Religion (1553-08-18).

“When you call somebody a fraud, that suggests the person knows she is lying. I don’t think Vandana Shiva necessarily knows that. But she is blinded by her ideology and her political beliefs. That is why she is so effective and so dangerous.”

Vandana Shiva (1952) Indian philosopher

Mark Lynas, journalist and environmental activist, as quoted in " Seeds of Doubt http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/08/25/seeds-of-doubt" by Michael Specter, The New Yorker (25 August 2014)

“How Adewen stuffed her braid in her mouth at that! Or she'd cover her mirth with her hands and shake till you'd think that the fit was upon her. She did the same too when she wept so you'd never be sure which she hid with her hands, her tears or her cackling. I think there were times she herself didn't know, nor does anyone know at times. Laugh till you weep. Weep till there's nothing left but to laugh at your weeping. In the end it's all one.”

Frederick Buechner book Godric

Godric (1980)

“I do not know why a girl should be expected to talk well till she is at least twenty. There cannot be much in her, she may be prettily exacting, or charmingly modest, but her attractions must be personal, not intellectual.”

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Jean Ingelow 39

Related quotes

Related topics