“That a woman is presented as a teacher, as a prototype of piety, cannot amaze anyone who knows that piety or godliness is fundamentally womanliness. … from a woman you learn concern for the one thing needful, from Mary, sister of Lazarus, who sat silent at Christ’s feet with her heart’s choice: the one thing needful. P. 149”

— Sören Kierkegaard

1850s, An Upbuilding Discourse December 20, 1850

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Sören Kierkegaard 309

Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism 1813–1855

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“The next thing you can learn from the woman who was a sinner, something she herself understood, is that with regard to finding forgiveness she is able to do nothing at all. P. 155”

Sören Kierkegaard (1813–1855) Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism

1850s, An Upbuilding Discourse December 20, 1850

“You can deduce everything about a woman from the way she holds her feet. Seductive women always turn their feet out. Don't expect to get anywhere with a woman who turns her feet in.”

Edouard Manet (1832–1883) French painter

a remark of Manet to Mallarmé, recorded by Thadée Natanson [husband of Misia Sert ]; as quoted in Berthe Morisot, the first lady of impressionism, Margaret Shennan; Sutton Books London 1996, p.136
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“There is a lot of piety among us, but not enough spirituality. Piety consists in the performance of external devotional practices and is measured by one’s fidelity to these practices. Whether or not the faithful performance of these exercises of piety improves the quality of one’s Christian life is a question that is seldom asked. One is at times surprised that priests, sisters and lay people who are obviously pious are manifestly unfair in their dealings with other people. Some of them show so little of the compassion of Christ and are quite unwilling to forgive others.”

Kurien Kunnumpuram (1931–2018) Indian theologian

Kunnumpuram, K. (ed) (2006) Life in Abundance: Indian Christian Reflections on Spirituality. Mumbai: St Pauls
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“If a woman with property needs the ballot, a woman who has nothing but her labor power needs two ballots.”

Gertrude Breslau Hunt (1869–1952)

Machinists' Monthly Journal

“The perfect woman, you see [is] a working-woman; not an idler; not a fine lady; but one who [uses] her hands and her head and her heart for the good of others.”

Thomas Hardy (1840–1928) English novelist and poet

“The next Christ will perhaps be a female Christ. But do we see one woman who looks like a female Christ? or even like "the messenger before" her "face", to go before her and prepare the hearts and minds for her?”

Florence Nightingale (1820–1910) English social reformer and statistician, and the founder of modern nursing

Cassandra (1860)
Context: The great reformers of the world turn into the great misanthropists, if circumstances or organisation do not permit them to act. Christ, if He had been a woman, might have been nothing but a great complainer. Peace be with the misanthropists! They have made a step in progress; the next will make them great philanthropists; they are divided but by a line.
The next Christ will perhaps be a female Christ. But do we see one woman who looks like a female Christ? or even like "the messenger before" her "face", to go before her and prepare the hearts and minds for her?
To this will be answered that half the inmates of Bedlam begin in this way, by fancying that they are "the Christ."
People talk about imitating Christ, and imitate Him in the little trifling formal things, such as washing the feet, saying His prayer, and so on; but if anyone attempts the real imitation of Him, there are no bounds to the outcry with which the presumption of that person is condemned.

“A woman who surrenders her freedom need not surrender her dignity.”

Wally Lamb (1950) american novelist

Source: The Hour I First Believed

“I think your piety one of your greatest charms; but then, like all other good things, it may be carried too far. To my thinking, a woman's religion ought not to lessen her devotion to her earthly lord. She should have enough to purify and etherealise her soul, but not enough to refine away her heart, and raise her above all human sympathies.”

Anne Brontë book The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

Source: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848), Ch. XXIII : First weeks of Matrimony; Arthur to Helen

“Then Jesus slowly turned to look at her and said, I have never been with a woman. Mary held his hands, This is how everyone has to begin, men who have never known a woman, women who have never known a man, until the day comes for the one who knows to teach the one who does not.”

José Saramago book The Gospel According to Jesus Christ

Então Jesus voltou lentamente o rosto para ela e disse. Não conheço mulher. Maria segurou-lhe as mãos, Assim temos de começar todos, homens que não conheciam mulher, mulheres que não conheciam homem, um dia o que sabia ensinou, o que não sabia aprendeu.
Source: The Gospel According to Jesus Christ (1991), p. 235

“The Euthyphron then gives us a two-fold presentation of piety. First, a discussion of what piety is. Secondly, a presentation of the problem of Socrates' piety.”

Leo Strauss (1899–1973) Classical philosophy specialist and father of neoconservativism

An Untitled Lecture on Plato's Euthyphron (1996)

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Sören Kierkegaard 309

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