Quotes about women

A collection of quotes on the topic of love, marriage, partnership, men.

Best quotes about women

Mikhail Lermontov photo

“Women love only those whom they do not know!”

A Hero of Our Time (1840; rev. 1841)

Oscar Wilde photo
Timothy Leary photo

“Women who seek to be equal with men lack ambition.”

Timothy Leary (1920–1996) American psychologist

As quoted in Third and Possibly the Best 637 Best Things Anybody Ever Said (1987) by Robert Byrne, #40

Oscar Wilde photo
George Carlin photo
Angelina Jolie photo

“I always play women I would date.”

Angelina Jolie (1975) American actress, film director, and screenwriter
Alexandre Dumas photo

“Women are never so strong as after their defeat.”

Alexandre Dumas (1802–1870) French writer and dramatist, father of the homonym writer and dramatist

Source: Queen Margot, or Marguerite de Valois

Mark Twain photo

Quotes about women

Andrzej Majewski photo

“Women are beautiful in the light of the day, but are even more so in the shadows of the night.”

Andrzej Majewski (1966) Polish writer and photographer

Aphorisms. Magnum in Parvo (2000)

Tom Hiddleston photo
Tupac Shakur photo
Freddie Mercury photo
Louis Tomlinson photo

“In my first video diary I explained my love for women who have a taste in carrots.”

Louis Tomlinson (1991) English pop singer

https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/5834782.Louis_Tomlinson

Harry Styles photo

“No. We don't really do that. We feel that objectifies women and that's not really what we're about.”

Harry Styles (1994) English singer, songwriter, and actor

When asked by a radio DJ if One Direction calls "dibs" on girls (26 June 2012) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LV85tICyfEA&t=546

Nikola Tesla photo

“This growing tendency of women to overshadow the masculine is a sign of a deteriorating civilization.”

Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) Serbian American inventor

Mr. Tesla Explains Why He Will Never Marry (1924)

Kurt Cobain photo
Keanu Reeves photo
Andrea Dworkin photo
Begum Rokeya photo

“Begum Rokeya had dreamt of a society where women would be magistrates, judges and barristers”

Begum Rokeya (1880–1932) Bengali feminist writer and social worker

Context: Begum Rokeya had dreamt of a society where women would be magistrates, judges and barristers and that has come true as many women are already there in such posts.

Mwanandeke Kindembo photo
Christine de Pizan photo
Andrea Dworkin photo
Madeleine K. Albright photo
Robert A. Heinlein photo
Andrea Dworkin photo
Xenophon photo
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk photo

“Humankind is made up of two sexes, women and men. Is it possible for humankind to grow by the improvement of only one part while the other part is ignored?”

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (1881–1938) Turkish army officer, revolutionary, and the first President of Turkey

As quoted in "Atatürk" in Images of a Divided World (29 October 2006) http://jmilton6000.wordpress.com/2006/10/29/ataturk/
Variant translation: Humankind consists of two sexes, woman and man. Is it possible that a mass is improved by the improvement of only one part and the other ignored? Is it possible that if half of a mass is tied to earth with chains and the other half can soar into skies?
Context: Humankind is made up of two sexes, women and men. Is it possible for humankind to grow by the improvement of only one part while the other part is ignored? Is it possible that if half of a mass is tied to earth with chains that the other half can soar into skies?

Dilma Rousseff photo
Madeleine K. Albright photo

“There is a special place in hell for women who don't help other women.”

Madeleine K. Albright (1937–2022) Former U.S. Secretary of State

Keynote speech at "Celebrating Inspiration" luncheon with the WNBA's All-Decade Team, quoted in Mechelle Voepel, ESPN (July 13, 2006)
2000s

Amos Oz photo
Carol Gilligan photo
Virginia Woolf photo
Robert Jordan photo
Christine de Pizan photo
Matthew Henry photo
Thomas Sankara photo
Ruth Bader Ginsburg photo

“Nine, nine… There have been nine men there for a long, long time, right? So why not nine women?”

Ruth Bader Ginsburg (1933) Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

In response to the question “How many women would be enough” [on the Supreme Court] during interview https://abcnews.go.com/WNT/video/chat-women-supreme-court-11976773 with Diane Sawyer at The Women’s Conference (Long Beach, California, October 26, 2010)

Begum Rokeya photo
Jeff Buckley photo
George Lincoln Rockwell photo

“Nazism says that women are absolutely equal to men. But they're different. And thank god for the difference.”

George Lincoln Rockwell (1918–1967) American politician, founder of the American Nazi Party

undated

“If we can’t solve our problems we must DESTROY our problems… One day incels will realise their true strength and numbers and will overthrow this oppressive feminist system. Start envisioning a world where WOMEN FEAR YOU.”

Elliot Rodger (1991–2014) American spree killer

As quoted in Rhys Blakely, "‘I will be a god. I will slaughter you like animals’", The Australian (July 19, 2014)
Bodybuilding.com, PUAhate and ForeverAlone posts

Dan Brown photo

“Women in most cultures have been stripped of their spiritual power.”

Dan Brown (1964) American author

Interview at Brown's official site http://www.danbrown.com/novels/davinci_code/faqs.html
Context: Two thousand years ago, we lived in a world of Gods and Goddesses. Today, we live in a world solely of Gods. Women in most cultures have been stripped of their spiritual power.

John Chrysostom photo

“Why do you sow where the field is eager to destroy the fruit? Where there are medicines of sterility? Where there is murder before birth? You do not even let a harlot remain a harlot, but you make her a murderess as well. Do you see that from drunkenness comes fornication, from fornication adultery, from adultery murder? Indeed, it is something worse than murder and I do not know what to call it; for she does not kill what is formed but prevents its formation. What then? Do you contemn the gift of God, and fight with His laws? What is a curse, do you seek as though it were a blessing? Do you make the anteroom of birth the anteroom of slaughter? Do you teach the woman who is given to you for the procreation of offspring to perpetrate killing? That she may always be beautiful and lovable to her lovers, and that she may rake in more money, she does not refuse to do this, heaping fire on your head; and even if the crime is hers, you are the cause. Hence also arise idolatries. To look pretty many of these women use incantations, libations, philtres, potions, and innumerable other things. Yet after such turpitude, after murder, after idolatry, the matter still seems indifferent to many men–even to many men having wives. In this indifference of the married men there is greater evil filth; for then poisons are prepared, not against the womb of a prostitute, but against your injured wife. Against her are these innumerable tricks, invocations of demons, incantations of the dead, daily wars, ceaseless battles, and unremitting contentions.”

John Chrysostom (349–407) important Early Church Father

St. John Chrysostom, Homily 24 on the Epistle to the Romans [PG 60:626-27] https://www.patheos.com/blogs/davearmstrong/2017/10/contraception-early-church-teaching-william-klimon.html

Oscar Wilde photo
Katharine Hepburn photo
Andrea Dworkin photo
Pablo Picasso photo

“For me, there are two kinds of women — goddesses and doormats.”

Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer

Quoted in: Briton Hadden, ‎Henry Robinson Luce (1969), Time, Vol. 93. p. 66.
1960s

Oscar Wilde photo
Johnny Depp photo
Saddam Hussein photo

“Women make up one half of society. Our society will remain backward and in chains unless its women are liberated, enlightened and educated.”

Saddam Hussein (1937–2006) Iraqi politician and President

" Women: One Half of Our Society http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Women_-_One_half_of_our_society" (1981).
Source: The Revolution and Woman in Iraq
Context: The complete emancipation of women from the ties which held them back in the past, during the ages of despotism and ignorance, is a basic aim of the Party and the Revolution. Women make up one half of society. Our society will remain backward and in chains unless its women are liberated, enlightened and educated.

Warren Farrell photo
Arthur Ashe photo
Martin Luther photo
Eleanor H. Porter photo
Basava photo

“Live morally, do not aspire for other's Wealth, Women and God.”

Basava (1134–1196) a 12th-century Hindu philosopher, statesman, Kannada Bhakti poet of Lingayatism

Basavanna's Preachings

Matka Tereza photo
Begum Rokeya photo
Lady Gaga photo
Vera Rubin photo
Niccolo Machiavelli photo

“Women are the most charitable creatures, and the most troublesome. He who shuns women passes up the trouble, but also the benefits. He who puts up with them gains the benefits, but also the trouble. As the saying goes, there's no honey without bees.”

Niccolo Machiavelli (1469–1527) Italian politician, Writer and Author

Le più caritative persone che sieno sono le donne, e le più fastidiose. Chi le scaccia, fugge e fastidii e l'utile; chi le intrattiene, ha l'utile ed e fastidii insieme. Ed è 'l vero che non è el mele sanza le mosche.
Act III, scene iv
The Mandrake (1524)

Heinrich Himmler photo

“One basic principle must be the absolute rule for the S. S. men. We must be honest, decent, loyal, and comradely to members of our own blood and nobody else. What happens to a Russian and a Czech does not interest me in the least. What the nations can offer in the way of good blood of our type we will take, if necessary by kidnapping their children and raising them here with us. Whether nations live in prosperity or starve to death interests me only in so far as we need them as slaves for our culture: otherwise it is of no interest to me. Whether ten thousand Russian females fall down from exhaustion while digging an anti-tank ditch interests me only in so far as the anti-tank ditch for Germany is finished. We shall never be tough and heartless where it is not necessary, that is clear. We, Germans, who are the only people in the world who have a decent attitude towards animals, will also assume a decent attitude towards these human animals. But it is a crime against our blood to worry about them and give them ideals, thus causing our sons and grandsons to have a more difficult time with them. When somebody comes up to me and says: 'I cannot dig the anti-tank ditch with women and children, it is inhuman, for it would kill them,' then I have to say: 'You are the murderer of your own blood, because if the anti-tank ditch is not dug German soldiers will die, and they are the sons of German mothers. They are our own blood….”

Heinrich Himmler (1900–1945) Nazi officer, Commander of the SS

Our concern, our duty, is our people and our blood. We can be indifferent to everything else. I wish the S.S. to adopt this attitude towards the problem of all foreign, non-Germanic peoples, especially Russians....
The Posen speech to SS officers (6 October 1943)
1940s

Auguste Comte photo
Bobby Fischer photo
George Best photo

“In 1969 I gave up women and alcohol - it was the worst 20 minutes of my life.”

George Best (1946–2005) British footballer

Reported in Ned Sherrin, Oxford Dictionary of Humorous Quotations (2008), p. 153.

Irene Dunne photo

“That's why there are so few women stars today. Pornography has taken away the mystery.”

Irene Dunne (1898–1990) American actress

A Visit With Irene Dunne (1977)

Vinko Vrbanić photo
Begum Rokeya photo

“They call themselves muslims and yet go against the basic tenet of islam which gives equal right to education. If men are not led astray once educated, why should women?”

Begum Rokeya (1880–1932) Bengali feminist writer and social worker

In 1926, when she addressed the bengal women's education conference http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/148459.Rokeya_Sakhawat_Hossain
Context: The opponents of the female education say that women will be unruly... fie! They call themselves muslims and yet go against the basic tenet of islam which gives equal right to education. If men are not led astray once educated, why should women?

Michael Parenti photo
Jacque Fresco photo
B.F. Skinner photo
Oscar Wilde photo

“Never marry at all, Dorian. Men marry because they are tired, women, because they are curious: both are disappointed.”

Lord Illingworth, Act III.
A Woman of No Importance (1893)
Variant: Men marry because they are tired; women because they are curious. Both are disappointed.
Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray

George Carlin photo

“Here's all you have to know about men and women: women are crazy, men are stupid. And the main reason women are crazy is that men are stupid.”

George Carlin (1937–2008) American stand-up comedian

Books, When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops? (2004)
Source: When Will Jesus Bring The Pork Chops?

Anne Brontë photo

“All novels are, or should be, written for both men and women to read, and I am at loss to conceive how a man should permit himself to write anything that would be really disgraceful to a woman, or why a woman should be censured for writing anything that would be proper and becoming for a man.”

Preface, 2nd edition (22 July 1848)
Source: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848)
Context: I am satisfied that if a book is a good one, it is so whatever the sex of the author may be. All novels are, or should be, written for both men and women to read, and I am at loss to conceive how a man should permit himself to write anything that would be really disgraceful to a woman, or why a woman should be censured for writing anything that would be proper and becoming for a man.

Susan B. Anthony photo
Christopher Hitchens photo
Osamu Dazai photo
Oscar Wilde photo

“Women are meant to be loved, not to be understood.”

Source: Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories

Sojourner Truth photo

“If women want rights more than they got, why don't they just take them, and not be talking about it.”

Sojourner Truth (1797–1883) African-American abolitionist and women's rights activist

As quoted in Sojourner Truth : A Self-made Woman (1974) by Victoria Ortiz
Variant: Sisters, I ain't clear what you be after. If women want any rights more than they's got, why don't they just take them, and not be talking about it?

Tamora Pierce photo
Christine de Pizan photo

“How many women are there…who because of their husbands' harshness spend their weary lives in the bond of marriage in greater suffering than if they were slaves among the Saracens?”

Quantes femmes est il qui usent leur vie au lien de mariage par la durte de leurs maris en plus grant penitence que se elles feussent esclaves entre les sarazins.
Part II, ch. 13, pp. 118-19.
Le Livre de la Cité des Dames (c. 1405)
Source: The Book of the City of Ladies

Oscar Wilde photo

“Women have a wonderful instinct about things. They can discover everything except the obvious.”

Lord Goring, Act II
Source: An Ideal Husband (1895)

Susan B. Anthony photo

“The true republic: men, their rights and nothing more: women, their rights and nothing less.”

Susan B. Anthony (1820–1906) American women's rights activist

Variant: Men, their rights, and nothing more; women, their rights, and nothing less.

George Orwell photo

“If you have no money, men won't care for you, women won't love you; won't, that is, care for you or love you the last little bit that matters.”

Source: Keep the Aspidistra Flying (1936), Ch. 1
Source: Why I Write
Context: Money, once again; all is money. All human relationships must be purchased with money. If you have no money, men won't care for you, women won't love you; won't, that is, care for you or love you the last little bit that matters. And how right they are, after all! For, moneyless, you are unlovable. Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels. But then, if I haven't money, I DON'T speak with the tongues of men and of angels.

Susan B. Anthony photo
Eleanor Roosevelt photo

“Women are like tea bags. You never know how strong they are until you put them in hot water.”

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) American politician, diplomat, and activist, and First Lady of the United States

Another quote often attributed to her without an original source in her writings, as in The Wit and Wisdom of Eleanor Roosevelt (1996), p. 199. But once again archivists have not been able to find the quote in any of her writings, see the comment from Ralph Keyes in The Quote Verifier above.
A very similar remark was attributed to Nancy Reagan, in The Observer (29 March 1981): "A woman is like a teabag — only in hot water do you realize how strong she is."
Variants:
A woman is like a teabag. You never know how strong she is until she gets into hot water.
A woman is like a tea bag, you can not tell how strong she is until you put her in hot water.
A woman is like a tea bag; you can't tell how strong she is and how much to trust her until you put her in hot water.
Disputed

Agatha Christie photo
Susan B. Anthony photo
Elie Wiesel photo
Agatha Christie photo
Thomas Sankara photo
Margaret Atwood photo

“Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them.”

Margaret Atwood (1939) Canadian writer

Context: "Why do men feel threatened by women?" I asked a male friend of mine. (I love that wonderful rhetorical device, "a male friend of mine." It's often used by female journalists when they want to say something particularly bitchy but don't want to be held responsible for it themselves. It also lets people know that you do have male friends, that you aren't one of those fire-breathing mythical monsters, The Radical Feminists, who walk around with little pairs of scissors and kick men in the shins if they open doors for you. "A male friend of mine" also gives — let us admit it — a certain weight to the opinions expressed.) So this male friend of mine, who does by the way exist, conveniently entered into the following dialogue. "I mean," I said, "men are bigger, most of the time, they can run faster, strangle better, and they have on the average a lot more money and power." "They're afraid women will laugh at them," he said. "Undercut their world view." Then I asked some women students in a quickie poetry seminar I was giving, "Why do women feel threatened by men?" "They're afraid of being killed," they said.

Waris Dirie photo
George Orwell photo
Elizabeth Cady Stanton photo
Doris Lessing photo
George Carlin photo
Martin Luther photo

“He who loves not wine, women and song remains a fool his whole life long.”

Martin Luther (1483–1546) seminal figure in Protestant Reformation

Variant: He who loves not Wine, Women and Song
Remains a fool his whole life long

Gloria Steinem photo
Billy Connolly photo
Louis XIV of France photo

“I could sooner reconcile all Europe than two women.”

Louis XIV of France (1638–1715) King of France and Navarra, from 1643 to 1715

Je mettrais plutôt toute l'Europe d'accord que deux femmes.
Comte de Mirabeau. Esprit de Mirabeau (v.1, page 246)