Quotes about women
page 13

“Malcolm looked warily at her. 'She may be dangerous,' he said to Julian. 'Then again, all women are dangerous.”

Cassandra Clare book Lady Midnight

Source: Lady Midnight

“I always run into strong women who are looking for weak men to dominate them.”

Andy Warhol (1928–1987) American artist

Men, Strong

“Successful women don't sleep until noon.”

Barbara Taylor Bradford (1933) British author

Source: Being Elizabeth

Sleep, Success

“Women are all female impersonators to some degree.”

Susan Brownmiller (1935) American journalist and activist

“Stare at me in this faceless way, go mad with desire, and rip my clothes off. It's terrific. In my sex fantasy, nobody ever loves me for my mind. The fantasy of rape — of which mine is in a kind of prepubescent sub-category — is common enough among women and (in mirror image) among men.”

Nora Ephron (1941–2012) Film director, author screenwriter

Nora Ephron: Crazy Salad: Some Things About Women, Knopf Publishing, New York, 1975

Love, Men, Sex, Way

“Everyone knows ladies love Cajuns. It's in our blood and our language is the language of romance."
"Your language is the language of bullshit. You're just a couple of good ole boys with pretty faces. Women just ought to know better.”

Christine Feehan book Night Game

Source: Night Game

Love, Boy

“Waiting for Prince Charming?"
"Aren't all women? And you're waiting for Cinderella."
"Actually," Jared said slowly, "I'm rather hoping to find the Evil Queen. I think she'd be much more fun.”

Jude Deveraux (1947) American writer

Source: True Love

Hope, Thinking, Evil, Waiting

“All women are not Helen, I know that, but have Helen in their hearts.”

William Carlos Williams (1883–1963) American poet

Heart

“Chosen motherhood is the real liberation. The choice to have a child makes the whole experience of motherhood different, and the choice to be generative in other ways can at last be made, and is being made by many women now, without guilt.”

Betty Friedan book The Feminine Mystique

Source: The Feminine Mystique

Way

“When would he learn that women never stayed where you put them?”

Maya Banks (1964) Author

Source: Hidden Away

Learning

“Most men and women, by birth or nature, lack the means to advance in wealth and power, but all have the ability to advance in knowledge.”

Pythagoras (-585–-495 BC) ancient Greek mathematician and philosopher

As quoted in The Golden Ratio (2002) by Mario Livio

Men, Birth, Nature, Knowledge

“Tampon commercial, detergent commercial, maxi pad commercial, windex commercial - you'd think all women do is clean and bleed.”

Gillian Flynn book Gone Girl

Source: Gone Girl

Thinking

“So much has been said and sung of beautiful young girls, why doesn't somebody wake up to the beauty of old women?”

Harriet Beecher Stowe book Uncle Tom's Cabin

Ch 13 The Quaker Settlement
Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852)

Beauty, Girl

“Why is it that there are always these problems and misunderstandings between men and women? Surely it would have been better if God had made only one sort of person, and the children had come by some other means, with the rain perhaps.”

Alexander McCall Smith book The Kalahari Typing School for Men

Source: The Kalahari Typing School for Men

Men, God, Children, Problem

“As Harry puts it, men and women can never be friends because 'the sex part always gets in the way.”

Nora Ephron (1941–2012) Film director, author screenwriter

Source: When Harry Met Sally

Men, Sex, Way, Parting

“History is a commentary on the various and continuing incapabilities of men. What is history? History is women following behind with the bucket.”

Alan Bennett The History Boys

Source: The History Boys

Men, History

“There’s no good reason (and many bad reasons) colleges spend more time telling women how to survive predators than telling the other half of their students not to be predators.”

Rebecca Solnit book Men Explain Things To Me

Source: Men Explain Things to Me

Time

“Love doesn't die; the men and women do.”

William Faulkner book If I Forget Thee

Source: The Wild Palms

Love, Men

“Actually, you know what? You keep thinking I'm God's gift to women, angel. It's better for me if you believe I'm the best you can get.”

Sylvia Day (1973) American writer

Source: Reflected in You

God, Angels, Thinking

“The women of Afghanistan, Iraq, and Iran who risk their lives and their beauty to defy the foulness of theocracy. Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Azar Nafisi as their ideal feminine model.”

Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) British American author and journalist

Source: Hitch-22: A Memoir

Beauty

“Good women tell all their lives, and by day and by hour and by minute, such things that angels can read.”

Bram Stoker book Dracula

Source: Dracula

Angels, Reading

“But there certainly are not so many men of large fortune in the world as there are pretty women to deserve them.”

Jane Austen book Mansfield Park

Source: Mansfield Park (1814)

Men, World

“Women need food, water, and compliments
That's right.
And an occasional pair of shoes.”

Chris Rock (1965) American comedian, actor, screenwriter, television producer, film producer, and director

Food, Shoe, Water

“Among men, sex sometimes results in intimacy; among women, intimacy sometimes results in sex.”

Barbara Cartland (1901–2000) English writer and media personality

Men, Sex

“Men and women are moved by tides much fiercer than you can imagine, and they sweep us all up into the current.”

Philip Pullman book Northern Lights

Source: The Golden Compass

Men, Imagination

“Nothing indicts female allegiance to patriarchy more than the willingness to behave as though the problems created by cultural investment in sexist thinking about the nature of male and female roles can be solved by women's working harder.”

Bell Hooks (1952) American author, feminist, and social activist

Source: Communion: The Female Search for Love

Nature, Problem, Thinking

“to know how to read is to light a lamp in the mind, to release the soul from prison, to open a gate to the universe." from Pavilion of Women page 292”

Pearl S. Buck (1892–1973) American writer

Soul, Light, Universe, Reading

“I've been in love (truly) with five women, the Spanish Republic and the 4th Infantry Division.”

Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American author and journalist

Letter to http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1547504/Hemingway-and-Dietrich-letters.html?service=print Marlene Dietrich (1 July 1930)

Love

“We live in a world which worships the unreal female body and despises real female power. In this culture, where women are commanded to always look available nut never actually be so, where, where we are obliged to appear socially and sexually consumable whilst consuming as little as possible, our most drastic retaliation is to undertake our own consumption: to consume ourselves - and so we do in ever increasing numbers.”

Laurie Penny book Meat Market: Female Flesh Under Capitalism

Source: Meat Market: Female Flesh Under Capitalism (2010), Chapter 2

World, Appearance

“Programs like TANF (Temporary Assistance to Needy Families, formerly known as AFDC) and WIC (Women, Infants, and Children) subsidize the exclusion of dads. In effect, they create, as we have seen, future welfare recipients. Or tax spenders.”

Warren Farrell (1943) author, spokesperson, expert witness, political candidate

Source: Father and Child Reunion (2001), p. 114.

Children, Family, Future

“The money men make from their willingness to work the least desirable hours is not a sign of discrimination against women, but a sign of the willingness of mostly married men to lose sleep to support the family as their wife loses sleep to feed the child. A willingness to do the uncomfortable shifts is one reason married men earn more than twice what never-married men earn. Men's contribution, made at night, need not be lost in the dark.”

Warren Farrell (1943) author, spokesperson, expert witness, political candidate

Source: Why Men Earn More (2005), p. 69.

Men, Money, Family, Support

“Our whole life can go on in observation of the laws of nature, if we gain dominion over our desires from the beginning and if we do not kill, by various means of a perverse art, the human offspring, born according to the designs of divine providence; for these women who, in order to hide their immorality, use abortive drugs which expel the child completely dead, abort at the same time their own human feelings.”

Clement of Alexandria (150–215) Christian theologian

Paedagogus 2 (circa 210).

Life, Law, Art, Feeling

“When you open a door for others to have an opinion on your relationship, it can be dangerous. Find what you need, not what everyone else wants for you. Women have been taught that in order to have a place in the world, an identity, they must marry and have children. If that's the life you truly want, great. But for many women, marriage is only about needing the world to know that someone desires them enough to say, "Here's a contract to prove that I love you and will commit to you for the rest of my life."”

Salma Hayek (1966) Mexican-American actress and producer

For these women, no contract equals no validation — and, thus, no reason for existing.
O interview (2003)

Love, Life, Marriage, Children

“Women must not merely imitate men. Women have more to give than performing any job in society like neutered robots. Those who talk today of rousing the 'consciousness' of women contribute an idea of real importance. It was such a grievous mistake to leave out women. For whence can come love, compassion and understanding if not out of the relations of men and women and of them to their children?”

Dora Russell (1894–1986) author, feminist, socialist campaigner

Source: The Tamarisk Tree (1975), Ch. XIV

Love, Men, Children, Idea

“Young Lithuanian baritone Vytautas Juozapaitis was well cast as the suave serial seducer with his aristocratic good looks and deep voice. Most women would find him charismatic if not irresistible. From the first moments it became evident that this company, with attractive sets and costumes, is miles ahead of most touring troupes. Theatrically and musically gratifying were the other cast members, all with international experience.”

Vytautas Juozapaitis (1963) Lithuanian opera singer

Corrine Dunn, "A polished Don Giovanni graces the Phil Stage", Naples Daily News (November, 2003) http://www.jennykellyproductions.com/prod_mozart_review.htm

Music

“In accordance to the way that Benn speaks, he is not educated. Sure, he's educated to a certain extent, but under different circumstances he would be a bouncer on some door in the West End and he'd have three kids from three different women … I am a superior person to that. I have finer points. So, superior in mentality, yes. As a fighter in accordance to the trade, yes”

Chris Eubank (1966) British former professional boxer

On Nigel Benn, his bitter rival. http://observer.guardian.co.uk/osm/story/0,,1010013,00.html#article_continue

Education, Way, Personality

“Stuart Wheeler says women are no good at poker?! If he fancies playing a bit of Heads Up, he knows where to find me.”

Victoria Coren (1972) British writer, presenter and poker player

Responding to Stuart Wheeler's suggestion that women are not good at chess, bridge or poker.
Evening Standard Quote of the Day, Friday 16 Aug 2013, p. 16

““This is the first award I received…In fact, I consider this priceless. This was presented to me by Sri. Godavarma Bhattan Thampuran of Kodungallur (Cranganore) Palace years ago. I was only 22 then. Those were days when Kodungallur used to witness the best assembly of scholars in Sanskrit and the sasthras. Present on that day were several highly learned men and women. The stage was in front of Sringapuram temple. I presented Bhagavad Dooth Prabhantham Koothu. My interpretation of one of the slokas was a little more elaborate than and different from the custom-worn treatment. The audience liked it. In appreciation, Bhattan Thampuran removed this ring from his finger and put it on mine. The spontaneous gesture in recognition of my art naturally is the most precious to me ”
-Guru Māni Mādhava Chākyār, about his prized possession- the golden ring from the great scholar H. H Bhattan Thampuran”

Mani Madhava Chakyar (1899–1990) Indian actor

Awards
Source: K. A. Chandrahasan, In pursuit of excellence (Performing Arts), "The Hindu", Sunday March 26, 1989

Men, Art, Nature, Learning

“I have that weakness. I think women are one of the most beautiful creations that could be given by nature, by God.”

Luis Miguel (1970) Puerto Rican singer; music producer

Interview in Mexico, 1995

God, Beauty, Nature, Thinking

“As many of us know, women are particularly focused on the household budget and the repeal of the carbon tax means a $550 a year benefit for the average family.”

Tony Abbott (1957) Australian politician

After being asked by host Lisa Wilkinson to nominate his top achievement in his capacity as Minister for Women, quoted in Sydney Morning Herald, "Tony Abbott names carbon tax repeal as his top achievement as Minister for Women'" http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/tony-abbott-names-carbon-tax-repeal-as-his-top-achievement-as-minister-for-women-20141221-12bw42, December 22, 2014 2014

Family

“You see, essentially, you cannot win the war on terror by military force. It is first and foremost a battle of ideas. It is secondly a law enforcement effort and a cooperative effort among nations. And only as a last resort do you use military force. This president has distorted the capabilities of the United States Armed Forces. He's used our men and women in uniform improperly in Guantanamo and engaged in actions that I think are totally against the Uniform Code of Military Justice and against what we stand for as the American people.”

Wesley Clark (1944) American general and former Democratic Party presidential candidate

92nd Street Y Cultural Center (2007)

Men, War, People, Justice

“She thought that most women make a great mistake in allowing dress to be the master instead of the servant of their good looks; many women were, she considered, entirely crushed and made insignificant by the beauty of their clothes.”

Ada Leverson (1862–1933) British writer

Source: Tenterhooks (1912), Chapter x.

Beauty, Clothes

“The picture of a naked girl is the most peaceful, but also the most unveiling image you can create, so it is very powerful. … We live in a patriarchal system where the female body is totally controlled and used. Women are ashamed of their bodies, and this is a deep problem. We are slaves of men because we do not control our sexuality.”

Oksana Shachko (1987–2018) Ukrainian artist and activist with FEMEN

Interview with Luxemburger Wort (2015)

Men, Peace, Girl, Problem

“The Hindus and idol-worshippers had agreed to pay the money for toleration (zar-i zimmiya) and had consented to the poll-tax (jizya) in return for which they and their families enjoyed security. These people now erected new idol-temples in the city and the environs in opposition to the Law of the Prophet which declares that such temples are not to be tolerated. Under divine guidance I destroyed these edifices and I killed those leaders of infidelity who seduced others into error, and the lower orders I subjected to stripes and chastisement, until this abuse was entirely abolished. The following is an instance:- In the village of Maluh there is a tank which they call kund (tank). Here they had built idol-temples and on certain days the Hindus were accustomed to proceed thither on horseback, and wearing arms. Their women and children also went out in palankins and carts. There they assembled in thousands and performed idol-worship' When intelligence of this came to my ears my religious feelings prompted me at once to put a stop to this scandal and offence to the religion of Islam. On the day of the assembly I went there in person and I ordered that the leaders of these people and the promoters of this abomination should be put to death. I forbade the infliction of any severe punishments on Hindus in general, but I destroyed their idol-temples, and instead thereof raised mosques. I founded two flourishing towns (kasba), one called Tughlikpur, the other Salarpur. Where infidels and idolaters worshipped idols, Musulmans now, by God's mercy, perform their devotions to the true God. Praises of God and the summons to prayer are now heard there, and that place which was formerly the home of infidels has become the habitation of the faithful, who there repeat their creed and offer up their praises to God…..'Information was brought to me that some Hindus had erected a new idol temple in the village of Salihpur, and were performing worship to their idols. I sent some persons there to destroy the idol temple, and put a stop to their pernicious incitements to error.”

Firuz Shah Tughlaq (1309–1388) Tughluq sultan

Delhi and Environs , Elliot and Dowson, History of India as told by its own Historians, 8 Volumes, Allahabad Reprint, 1964. Elliot and Dowson. Vol. III, p. 380-81
Quotes from the Futuhat-i-Firuz Shahi

Death, Money, God, Children

“It keeps you fit - the alcohol, nasty women, sweat on stage, bad food - it's all very good for you.”

Bon Scott (1946–1980) Rock musician

When asked about touring. From Circus, January 1979.

Alcohol, Food

“I find this varies considerably from near-death experience to near-death experience. For example, having a wandering loonie break down the door of my game store to look for women was so funny the entire concussion and pools of blood thing was a minor footnote. Being sucked out into the Atlantic by an undertow was deeply irritating. Having a snowba[n]k collapse on me was alarming because of the claustrophobia issue. The car wreck was over almost before I had time to realise what was happening.”

James Nicoll (1961) Canadian fiction reviewer

[b38svt$o0u$1@panix1.panix.com, 2003]
To which Ian York replied, in [b38tv9$5eh$1@reader1.panix.com, 2003]:
Don't get the wrong idea here, people. Even for James that was a busy day.
2000s

Death, Cars, Game, Time

“The vanguard of industrial investment in the world capitalist system is in the lowest paid segment of those countries paying the lowest wages. Young women in developing countries are the labor force on this frontier just as women and children were in the industrialization of England and Europe in the nineteenth century. Escaping the patriarchal restrictions of domestic production, young women workers are segregated in the new industrial compounds where they are subject to the patriarchal control of managers.”

June Nash (1927–2019) American anthropologist

Source: Women, Men, and the International Division of Labor, 1983, p. x

Children, World, Country

“But will reënforcement work the other way, also? Religion strengthens the social spirit; will the social spirit strengthen personal religion? When a minister gets hot about child labor and wage slavery, is he not apt to get cold about prayer meetings and evangelistic efforts? When young women become interested in social work, do they not often lose their taste for the culture of the spiritual life and the peace of religious meditation?”

Walter Rauschenbusch (1861–1918) United States Baptist theologian

Source: Christianizing the Social Order (1912), p. 103

Life, Peace, Religion, Way

“The government of the United States represents, as its army also does, the finances of the United States. But these finances do not represent the North American people; they represent a small group of financiers, the owners of all the big enterprises… who also exploit the North American people. Clearly they do not exploit them in the same manner that they exploit us, the human beings of inferior races… for we have not had the good fortune of being born from blond, Anglo-Saxon parents. But they do exploit and divide them, they too are divided into blacks and whites, and they too are divided into men and women, union and non-union, employed and unemployed.”

Ernesto Che Guevara (1928–1967) Argentine Marxist revolutionary

As quoted in Che Guevara Speaks: Selected Speeches and Writings (1968), by George Lavan, p. 17

Men, People, Parent

“[Concerning river runners:] If we were going into war again I can't think of any I'd rather have on our side. I mean, all of these good men and women. And if they were on the other side I'd join the other side.”

Edward Abbey book Down the River

Down the River (1982)

Men, War, Thinking

“Anyone who thinks that race does not still, even if inadvertently, skew the application of criminal justice in this country is just not paying close enough attention. Our prisons are full of black and brown men and women who are serving inappropriately long and harsh sentences for non-violent mistakes in their youth.”

Rand Paul (1963) American politician, ophthalmologist, and United States Senator from Kentucky

2010s

Men, Youth, Justice, Thinking

“I was overjoyed when I was taken to a show of the American Abstract Artists Group in '37. They were all alive and they were American! My escort further interested me when he told me the two best abstract artists in America were not in the show — Arshile Gorky and Willem de Kooning, whom I met a couple of months later — when I began to study with him [with Willem de Kooning]. When Miss Nochlin says, 'What is important is that women face up to the reality of their history,' well, the point is, artists are always choosing their history from day to day and their history follows them as much as it precedes them. Were American artists 'facing up to the reality of their history' when they turned to the School of Paris or to German Expressionism or Dada or Surrealism or de Stijl or the Bauhaus instead of to Copley, Peale, Eakins, Blake or Ryder; was Picasso facing up to the reality of his history when he was snooping around African art for inspiration?”

Elaine de Kooning (1918–1989) American painter

n.p.
1950 - 1971, Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists' - Rosalyn Drexler with Elaine de Kooning (1971)

School, Art, History, Reality

“Words that warmed women, wooed and won them, snipped the final thread of inhibition and gratified the male egos of ungrateful lovers; […] for which they were eternally in his debt, for which they may eternally hate him.”

Gay Talese Frank Sinatra Has a Cold

Frank Sinatra Has a Cold (Esquire, April 1966)

Hate, Lovers

“That's the trouble with foreign travel. You spend half your time trying to find edible food, and the rest fighting off men who profess extravagant love to your female companions. I'm amazed how many women believe outright lies from foreigners.”

Lindsey Davis book A Body in the Bath House

A Body in the Bath House

Love, Men, Food, Travel

“Women are more evolved biologically and emotionally, that’s well known and it’s obvious. But they confuse sex and the spirit; they don’t separate. Men, as you know, always separate: they separate their human and dog natures.”

Jeet Thayil (1959) Indian writer

Source: An extract from Jeet Thayil's Booker-shortlisted Narcopolis http://www.welovethisbook.com/features/extract-narcopolis, 10 September 2012 The Bookseller Media

Men, Dogs, Sex, Nature

“"Everyone is bisexual’: “I’ve always had as many powerful, creative ladies in my life as I have men, and you could probably describe some of those relationships as romantic. I think everyone’s bisexual to some degree or another; it’s just a question of whether or not you choose to recognise it and embrace it. Personally, I think choosing between men and women is like choosing between cake and ice cream. You’d be daft not to try both when there are so many different flavours.””

Björk (1965) Icelandic singer-songwriter

Diva magazine, October 2004
Other quotes

Life, Men, Question, Thinking

“What is most beautiful in virile men is something feminine; what is most beautiful in feminine women is something masculine.”

Susan Sontag (1933–2004) American writer and filmmaker, professor, and activist

"Notes on 'Camp'" (1964), note 9, p. 279 http://books.google.com/books?id=e3qgRrVlEH4C&q=%22What+is+most+beautiful+in+virile+men+is+something+feminine+what+is+most+beautiful+in+feminine+women+is+something+masculine%22&pg=PA279#v=onepage; originally published in Partisan Review, Vol. 31 No. 4 http://books.google.com/books?id=qEwqAQAAMAAJ&q=%22What+is+most+beautiful+in+virile+men+is+something+feminine+what+is+most+beautiful+in+feminine+women+is+something+masculine%22&pg=PA519#v=onepage, ( Fall 1964 http://www.bu.edu/partisanreview/books/PR1964V31N4/HTML/#519/z) Against Interpretation and Other Essays (1966)

Men, Beauty

“A man of honor is never predatory or unfaithful. He does not regard women as objects. He treats women with respect as his equal in dignity.”

Robert P. George (1955) American legal scholar

Twitter post https://twitter.com/McCormickProf/status/911713887061409797 (23 September 2017) 2017

Unfaithfulness

“The private ownership of great art, its seclusion from the general view of men and women, let alone from that of interested amateurs and scholars, is a curious business. The literal disappearance of a Turner or a Van Gogh into some Middle Eastern or Latin-American bank vault to be kept as investment and collateral, the sardonic decision of a Greek shipping tycoon to put an incomparable El Greco on his yacht, where it hangs at persistent risk — these are phenomena that verge on vandalism.”

George Steiner (1929–2020) American writer

"The Cleric of Treason".
George Steiner: A Reader (1984)

Men, Art, Business, Decision

“They might have occurred if either General Dreedle or General Peckem had once evinced an interest in taking part in orgies with him, but neither ever did, and the colonel was certainly not going to waste his time and energy making love to beautiful women unless there was something in it for him.”

Joseph Heller book Catch-22

Catch-22 (1961)

Love, Making love, Beauty, Time

“In asking forgiveness of women for our mythologizing of their bodies, for being unreal about them, we can only appeal to their own sexuality, which is different but not basically different, perhaps, from our own. For women, too, there seems to be that tangle of supplication and possessiveness, that descent toward infantile undifferentiation, that omnipotent helplessness, that merger with the cosmic mother-warmth, that flushed pulse- quickened leap into overestimation, projection, general mix-up.”

John Updike (1932–2009) American novelist, poet, short story writer, art critic, and literary critic

“The Female Body,” Michigan Quarterly Review (1990)

Forgiveness

“Equal Rights and Responsibilities is a basic idea that would have very important psychological effects on women and men from the time they are born. It could very much change the girl child's idea of her place in the world... It seems to me very important to the idea of true democracy – to my country – and to the world eventually – that all men and women stand equal under the sky – I wish that you could be with us in this fight..”

Georgia O'Keeffe (1887–1986) American artist

In a letter to Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt, February 10, 1944; as quoted in Voicing our visions, -Writings by women artists; ed. Mara R. Witzling, Universe New York, 1991, pp. 227-28
1930 - 1950

Men, World, Democracy, Girl

“It is often said that women are a civilizing balance to the innately warlike male. By taking care of the killing for women it could be said that men civilized women. When survival was the issue, men killing to protect what women bore was the male form of nurturance.”

Warren Farrell book The Myth of Male Power

Source: The Myth of Male Power (1993), Part 1: The Myth of Male Power, p. 79.

Men

“[Hillary Clinton] was trying to encourage us to become more active in politics and she said, 'If you leave all the decision-making to others, you might not like what they do, and you will have no one but yourself to blame.' It was such a challenge to the women in the room. And it really hit me: She’s talking to me.”

Kirsten Gillibrand (1966) United States Senator from New York

Describing Hillary Clinton's influence on Gillibrand's entering politics

Decision

“Libertarians see the individual as the basic unit of social analysis. Only individuals make choices and are responsible for their actions. Libertarian thought emphasizes the dignity of each individual, which entails both rights and responsibility. The progressive extension of dignity to more people — to women, to people of different religions and different races — is one of the great libertarian triumphs of the Western world.”

David Boaz (1953) libertarian, author and editor

"Key Concepts of Libertarianism" (1 January 1999) http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=5758

People, World, Religion

“Also, I learned whether you are gay, bisexual, it doesn't matter, you know … because, at the end of the day, they're both gross. But mostly, I learned that elderly black women are wise beyond their years … but younger black women are prostitutes.”

Sarah Silverman (1970) American comedian and actress

The Sarah Silverman Program

Learning

“In 1973, the United States Supreme Court handed down Roe v. Wade. In the sweep of a pen, the Supreme Court promised all American women that there would never again be another Jane Roe, beginning distant courts for the basic human right to decide for herself whether to terminate a pernancy. Never again, the Court promised, may the State presume to intrude on a decision so intimate and significant that it may well determine the remainder of a young woman's life.”

Gloria Allred (1941) American civil rights lawyer

Gloria Allred. 1990 Gloria Allred testimony before United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary. Publication Title: Hearings on the Nomination of David H. Souter to be Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, September 13, 14, 17, 18, and 19, 1990. Category: Congressional Committee Materials. Collection: Additional Government Publications. Publication name: Supreme Court Nomination Hearings. Date issued: September 13, 1990. Congress. 101st Congress, 2nd Session. www.gpo.gov http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/GPO-CHRG-SOUTER/pdf/GPO-CHRG-SOUTER-5-2-1.pdf, more info at S. Hrg. 101-1263 at www.gpo.gov http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/granule/GPO-CHRG-SOUTER/GPO-CHRG-SOUTER-2-4-1-5-3

Life, Decision, Distant

“Dead, your Majesty. Dead, my lords and gentlemen. Dead, Right Reverends and Wrong Reverends of every order. Dead, men and women, born with Heavenly compassion in your hearts. And dying thus around us every day.”

Charles Dickens book Bleak House

Source: Bleak House (1852-1853), Ch. 47

Men, Heart, Dead

“The Internet is the modern form of knitting. In the old days women who had nothing to do would knit, but at least you got something out of it — a pair of socks, maybe a scarf, occasionally a little bedspread. That’s mostly what the Internet is, just passing the time. But unfortunately you are dealing with words that can have meaning.”

Tom Wolfe (1930–2018) American author and journalist

American Spectator interview (2005)

Time

“The man, who was probably an itinerant traditional circumciser from the blacksmith clan, picked up a pair of scissors. With the other hand, he caught hold of the place between my legs and started tweaking it, like Grandma milking a goat. "There it is, the kintir," one of the women said. Then the scissors went down between my legs and the man cut off my inner labia and clitoris. I heard it, like a butcher snipping the fat off a piece of meat. A piercing pain shot up between my legs, indescribable, and I howled. Then came the sewing: the long, blunt needle clumsily pushed into my bleeding outer labia, my loud and anguished protests, Grandma's words of comfort and encouragement. "It's just this once in your life, Ayaan. Be brave, it's almost finished."”

Ayaan Hirsi Ali book Infidel

When the sewing was finished, he cut the thread off with his teeth.
Source: Infidel (2007), Chapter 2: Under the Talal Tree

Life, Pain, Grandma

“Women have very little idea of how much men hate them.”

Germaine Greer book The Female Eunuch

p. 263 http://books.google.com/books?ei=7hdeUeCtEOGmiQLnu4HYBg&id=x88du4E7ARAC&dq=%22The+Female+Eunuch%22+1971&q=%22hate+them%22#search_anchor Often paraphrased as: "women have no idea how much men hate them." The Female Eunuch (1970)

Men, Hate, Idea

“Suppose a clothing manufacturer learns of a machine that will make men’s and women's overcoats for half as much labor as previously. He installs the machines and drops half his labor force.This looks at first glance like a clear loss of employment. But the machine itself required labor to make it; so here, as one offset, are jobs that would not otherwise have existed. The manufacturer, how ever, would have adopted the machine only if it had either made better suits for half as much labor, or had made the same kind of suits at a smaller cost. If we assume the latter, we cannot assume that the amount of labor to make the machines was as great in terms of pay rolls as the amount of labor that the clothing manufacturer hopes to save in the long run by adopting the machine; otherwise there would have been no economy, and he would not have adopted it.So there is still a net loss of employment to be accounted for. But we should at least keep in mind the real possibility that even the first effect of the introduction of labor-saving machinery may be to increase employment on net balance; because it is usually only in the long run that the clothing manufacturer expects to save money by adopting the machine: it may take several years for the machine to "pay for itself."After the machine has produced economies sufficient to offset its cost, the clothing manufacturer has more profits than before. (We shall assume that he merely sells his coats for the same price as his competitors, and makes no effort to undersell them.) At this point, it may seem, labor has suffered a net loss of employment, while it is only the manufacturer, the capitalist, who has gained. But it is precisely out of these extra profits that the subsequent social gains must come. The manufacturer must use these extra profits in at least one of three ways, and possibly he will use part of them in all three: (1) he will use the extra profits to expand his operations by buying more machines to make more coats; or (2) he will invest the extra profits in some other industry; or (3) he will spend the extra profits on increasing his own consumption. Whichever of these three courses he takes, he will increase employment.”

Henry Hazlitt book Economics in One Lesson

Economics in One Lesson (1946), The Curse of Machinery (ch. 7)

Men, Money, Hope, Way

“To be pleasant, gentle, calm and self-possessed: this is the basis of good taste and charm in a woman. No matter how amorous or passionate you may be, as long as you are straightforward and refrain from causing others embarrassment, no one will mind. But women who are too vain and act pretentiously, to the extent that they make others feel uncomfortable, will themselves become the object of attention; and once that happens, people will find fault with whatever they say or do: whether it be how they enter a room, how they sit down, how they stand up or how they take their leave. Those who end up contradicting themselves and those who disparage their companions are also carefully watched and listened to all the more. As long as you are free from such faults, people will surely refrain from listening to tittle-tattle and will want to show you sympathy, if only for the sake of politeness. I am of the opinion that when you intentionally cause hurt to another, or indeed if you do ill through mere thoughtless behavior, you fully deserve to be censured in public. Some people are so good-natured that they can still care for those who despise them, but I myself find it very difficult. Did the Buddha himself in all his compassion ever preach that one should simply ignore those who slander the Three Treasures? How in this sullied world of ours can those who are hard done by be expected to reciprocate in kind?”

Murasaki Shikibu book The Diary of Lady Murasaki

trans. Richard Bowring
The Diary of Lady Murasaki

People, World, Behavior, Feeling

“People are often reproached because their desires are directed mainly to money and they are fonder of it than of anything else. Yet it is natural and even inevitable for them to love that which, as an untiring Proteus, is ready at any moment to convert itself into the particular object of our fickle desires and manifold needs. Thus every other blessing can satisfy only one desire and one need; for instance, food is good only to the hungry, wine only for the healthy, medicine for the sick, a fur coat for winter, women for youth, and so on. Consequently, all these are only … relatively good. Money alone is the absolutely good thing because it meets not merely one need in concreto, but needs generally in abstracto.”

Arthur Schopenhauer book Aphorisms on the Wisdom of Life

E. Payne, trans. (1974) Vol. 1, p. 347
Parerga and Paralipomena (1851), Aphorisms on the Wisdom of Life

Love, Money, People, Youth

“I’m sick of hearing how far we’ve come. I’m sick of hearing how in some cases women are superseding men, progressing to positions of middle and upper management. Above all, I’m sick of hearing about the pipeline, about the path to the top supposedly thick with women who will, in the fullness of time, be rewarded for their patience and virtue. The following figures speak for themselves: Three percent of Fortune 500 companies are headed by women; 16.8 percent of members of the U. S. Congress are women; 7 percent of tenured engineering faculty in four-year institutions are women. The fact is that so far as leadership is concerned, women in nearly every realm are hardly any better off than they were a generation ago.”

Barbara Kellerman (1939) American academic

Barbara Kellerman in Harvard Business Review; Cited in " Quote of the week: Barbara Kellerman http://theweek.com/articles/494754/quote-week-barbara-kellerman," at theweek.com, April 30, 2010.

Men, Time, Patience

“O thin men of Haddam,
Why do you imagine golden birds?
Do you not see how the blackbird
Walks around the feet
Of the women about you?”

Wallace Stevens book Harmonium

"Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird"
Harmonium (1923)

Men, Imagination, Bird

“Not all women like a beating. Only the normal ones.”

Nélson Rodrigues (1912–1980) Brazilian writer and playwright

Flor de Obsessão: as 1000 melhores frases de Nelson Rodrigues, Companhia das Letras, 1992
Variant: All women like a beating.

“A small but significant number of angry and historically minded women comprehend the women's revolution in the visionary sense of an end to the catastrophic brotherhood and a return to the former glory and wise equanimity of the matriarchies. We don't know how this will take place exactly, nor the resultant nature of the new social forms, we know that it will take place, and in fact that the process of its development is now irreversibly underway. Of supreme importance in this process is the recovery by modern woman of her mythology as models for theory, consciousness, and action…. The Swiss patrician Jacob Bachofen was one of the first to discover "the female era at the lower seam of history, with its sacerdotal, political, and economic female dominion."”

Jill Johnston book Lesbian Nation

…. The fruits of this research were until recently unavailable except to a few initiates and they now form a cornerstone of the second wave in the feminist revolution....
Lesbian Nation (N.Y.: Simon & Schuster, 1973 (SBN (not ISBN) 671-21433-0)), pp. 248–249.

History, Nature, Sense

“White women in Washington who have been raped and mugged on the streets in broad daylight have experienced the most revolting sort of violation of their civil rights. The hundreds of others who had their purses snatched last year by Negro hoodlums may understandably insist that their right to walk the street unmolested was violated.”

Jesse Helms (1921–2008) American politician

(1963), as quoted in Whitewash: In his new autobiography, Jesse Helms sees himself as a humanitarian not a racist supporter of brutal right-wing regimes who turned obstructionism into a foreign policy by Barry Yeoman http://www.indyweek.com/indyweek/whitewash/Content?oid=1195584 1960s

Understanding

“What makes The Joker tick I wonder?” Fredric said. “I mean what are his real motivations?”
“Consider him at any level of conduct,” Bruce said slowly, “in the home, on the street, in interpersonal relations, in jail—always there is an extraordinary contradiction. He is dirty and compulsively neat, aloof and desperately gregarious, enthusiastic and sullen, generous and stingy, a snappy dresser and a scarecrow, a gentleman and a boor, given to extremes of happiness and despair, singularly well able to apply himself and capable of frittering away a lifetime in trivial pursuits, decorous and unseemly, kind and cruel, tolerant yet open to the most outrageous varieties of bigotry, a great friend and an implacable enemy, a lover and abominator of women, sweet-spoken and foul-mouthed, a rake and a puritan, swelling with hubris and haunted by inferiority, outcast and social climber, felon and philanthropist, barbarian and patron of the arts, enamored of novelty and solidly conservative, philosopher and fool, Republican and Democrat, large of soul and unbearably petty, distant and brimming with friendly impulses, an inveterate liar and astonishingly strict with petty cash, adventurous and timid, imaginative and stolid, malignly destructive and a planter of trees on Arbor Day—I tell you frankly, the man is a mess.”
“That’s extremely well said Bruce,” Fredric stated. “I think you’ve given a very thoughtful analysis.”

Donald Barthelme (1931–1989) American writer, editor, and professor

“I was paraphrasing what Mark Schorer said about Sinclair Lewis,” Bruce replied.
“The Joker’s Greatest Triumph”.
Come Back, Dr. Caligari (1964)

Fools, Art, Home, Soul

“Women are never supposed to have any occupation of sufficient importance not to be interrupted, except "suckling their fools "; and women themselves have accepted this, have written books to support it, and have trained themselves so as to consider whatever they do as not of such value to the world or to others, but that they can throw it up at the first "claim of social life." They have accustomed themselves to consider intellectual occupation as a merely selfish amusement, which it is their " duty " to give up for every trifler more selfish than themselves.”

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

Cassandra (1860)

Life, Books, World, Fools

“The punishment of those who have loved women too much is to love them forever.”

Joseph Joubert (1754–1824) French moralist and essayist

Love

“Neither federal nor state government acts compatibly with equal protection when a law or official policy denies to women, simply because they are women, full citizenship stature - equal opportunity to aspire, achieve, participate in and contribute to society based on their individual talents and capacities.”

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

Writing for the court, United States v. Virginia, 518 U.S. 515 (1996)

Law

“All places where women are excluded tend downward to barbarism; but the moment she is introduced, there come in with her courtesy, cleanliness, sobriety, and order.”

Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811–1896) Abolitionist, author

Part 2, Ch. 2.
Household Papers and Stories (1864)

“It's an exciting time to be a woman. When I was a kid the "power of women" or "women power" was a phrase that seemed to carry on it a call of action. I dream of what could be in the future. The women that I grew up around they they seem to feel their power but they also seem to shy away from the full expression of it, or they expressed in unthreatening ways that were not disruptive. When I was a young women in Hollywood if you were a woman focused on building your career you were labeled "ambitious", and it was a bad word. So I was decidedly not. And adopted a kind of an, 'Ooh, how did this happen to me?'”

Gwyneth Paltrow (1972) American actress, singer, and food writer

approach. I believed that wanting my success was somehow a bad thing.

Dreams, Way, Feeling, Time

“A study of attorneys found that the attorneys whose pictures were judged independently to be the better-looking ones were able to earn about 12% more per year than the less good-looking ones. The better-looking attorneys worked longer hours, but even when that and dozens of other variables were controlled for, the better-looking attorneys were able to bill significantly more per hour. Needless to say, the male attorneys were ranked as much less attractive than the women, increasing the gap in women’s pay over men’s. The bigger the gap in looks, the bigger was the gap in pay. The more time passed, the more the gap widened. Sometimes life isn’t fair.”

Warren Farrell (1943) author, spokesperson, expert witness, political candidate

Source: Why Men Earn More (2005), p. 199-200.

Life, Men, Study, Time

“Surrealism, such as I conceive of it, asserts our complete nonconformism clearly enough so that there can be no question of translating it, at the trial of the real world, as evidence for the defense. It could, on the contrary, only serve to justify the complete state of distraction which we hope to achieve here below. Kant's absentmindedness regarding women, Pasteur's absentmindedness about 'grapes', Curies absentmindedness with respect to vehicles, are in this regard profoundly symptomatic. This world is only very relatively in tune with thought, and incidents of this kind are only the most obvious episodes of a war in which I am proud to be participating. 'Ce monde nest que très relativement à la mesure de la pensée et les incidents de ce genre ne sont que les épisodes jusquici les plus marquants dune guerre dindépendence à laquelle je me fais gloire de participer'. Surrealism is the 'invisible ray' which will one day enable us to win out over our opponents. 'You are no longer trembling, carcass.”

André Breton (1896–1966) French writer

This summer the roses are blue; the wood is of glass. The earth, draped in its verdant cloak, makes as little impression upon me as a ghost. It is living and ceasing to live which are imaginary solutions. Existence is elsewhere.
The last sentences of the Surrealist Manifesto, 1924
Le Manifeste du Surréalisme, Andre Breton (Manifesto of Surrealism; 1924)

War, World, Hope, Question

“If women could be fair and yet not fond,
Or that their love were firm, not fickle still,
I would not marvel that they make men bond
By service long to purchase their good will;
But when I see how frail those creatures are,
I laugh that men forget themselves so far.”

Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford (1550–1604) English peer and courtier of the Elizabethan era

Poem "If women could be fair and yet not fond", also sometimes titled "Woman's Changeableness". According to Oxford specialist Steven May this is "possibly" by Oxford, but his authorship is not certain. It was printed in variant form as the work of Oxford in 1587, but attributed to "R.W." in the Harleian MS. A version was printed in Britons Bower of Delights (1591) attributed to Oxford.
Poems, Attributed

Love, Men, Forgetting

“Howiver, I'm not denyin' the women are foolish: God Almighty made 'em to match the men.”

George Eliot book Adam Bede

Chapter 53 http://books.google.com/books?id=0OU8AAAAYAAJ&q=%22Howiver+I'm+not+deny+in+the+women+are+foolish+God+Almighty+made+em+to+match+the+men%22&pg=PA530#v=onepage Adam Bede (1859)

Men, God

“Rat and behavioral psychology … mirror the actual inhumanity of reality. Rat psychology is human psychology where a total society has trained human beings to be creatures of stimulus and response, i. e. rats. “Insofar as the hardening of society has reduced men more and more to objects,” wrote Adorno, “methods which convey this are no sacrilege. … The method serves freedom in that it wordlessly testifies to the prevailing unfreedom.” Or, as Adorno and Horkheimer wrote in another context: “The usual objection that empirical social research is too mechanical, too crude, and too unspiritual [ungeistig] shifts the responsibility from that which science is investigating to science itself.” … The idealistic misconception of … behavioral methods … shifts the evil from the social conditions that coerce men and women into standardized roles onto the social science that is merely registering these conditions.”

Russell Jacoby (1945) American historian

Source: Social Amnesia: A Critique of Conformist Psychology from Adler to Laing (1975), p. 69

Men, Behavior, Reality, Freedom

“The truth is that Mozart, Pascal, Boolean Algebra, Shakespeare, parliamentary government, baroque churches, Newton, the emancipation of women, Kant, Marx, and Balanchine ballets don't redeem what this particular civilization has wrought upon the world. The white race is the cancer of human history.”

Susan Sontag (1933–2004) American writer and filmmaker, professor, and activist

Partisan Review (Winter 1967), p. 57

Truth, World, History

“As well you try to understand the sun, Perrin. It simply is, and it is not to be understood. You cannot live without it, but it exacts a price. So with women.”

Robert Jordan (1948–2007) American writer

Gaul
(15 September 1992)

Understanding, Sun

“Remember, under this Flag National Flag of India, there is no prince and there is no peasant, there is no rich no poor. There is no privilege; there is only duty and responsibility and sacrifice. Whether we be Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Jains, Sikhs or Zoroastrians and others, our Mother India has one undivided heart and on indivisible spirit. Men and women of reborn India, rise and salute this Flag!”

R. Venkataraman (1910–2009) seventh Vice-President of India and the 8th President of India

In His speech to the nation on the day prior to the Republic Day (in 1989), p. 181-82
Commissions and Omissions by Indian Presidents and Their Conflicts with the Prime Ministers Under the Constitution: 1977-2001

Men, Heart