Quotes about women
page 5

“[Women's] boarding schools, as we know, hold the three principal subjects which constitute the basis of human virtue to be the French language (a thing indispensable to the happiness of married life), piano-playing (a thing wherewith to beguile a husband’s leisure moments), and that particular department of housewifery which is comprised in the knitting of purses and other “surprises.” Nevertheless changes and improvements have begun to take place, since things now are governed more by the personal inclinations and idiosyncracies of the keepers of such establishments. For instance, in some seminaries the regimen places piano-playing first, and the French language second, and then the above department of housewifery; while in other seminaries the knitting of “surprises” heads the list, and then the French language, and then the playing of pianos—so diverse are the systems in force!”

Nikolai Gogol book Dead Souls

Vol. 1, ch. 2
Dead Souls (1842)

Life, School, Change, Personality

“Freud said he didn’t know what women wanted. I know what women want. They want a whole lot of people to talk to.”

Kurt Vonnegut book God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian

God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian (1999)

People

“My beliefs were that men and women alike have to be in this struggle together, and we cannot safeguard our country just with one wing. … Now our women are the leaders, not only political leaders, but also leaders that lead in every single front, and they are part of the main leaders of the revolution. And therefore, you can see that the rulers are afraid from women.”

Tawakkol Karman (1979) Yemeni journalist, politician, human rights activist, and Nobel Peace Prize recipient

2010s, Democracy Now! interview (2011)

Men, Parting, Country

“I think men and women who write poetry or write music or paint are finally responsible for what they do. They are entitled to praise for any success they achieve and they should not complain of just criticism.”

Geoffrey Hill (1932–2016) English poet and professor

Interview, The Paris Review No. 80, Spring 2000 http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/730/the-art-of-poetry-no-80-geoffrey-hill

Men, Music, Thinking, Success

“It doesn't matter who you love, it's that you love. Who cares if men marry men or women marry women? In San Francisco you don't care, and I applaud that. And I applaud Mayor Newsom for being so brave.”

Megan Mullally (1958) American actress

Upon receiving GLAAD's Golden Gate Award, which honors a member of the entertainment or media community for their outstanding contribution in combating homophobia

Love, Men

“Women are never disarmed by compliments. Men always are.”

Oscar Wilde An Ideal Husband

Mrs. Cheveley, Act III
An Ideal Husband (1895)

Men

“I am so happy I want to be there. I know Saudi Arabia will never be the same again, women will have easy access to transportation and that means they will be more part of the workforce.”

Manal al-Sharif (1979) Saudi Arabian activist

About lifting of the ban on women driving in Saudi Arabia. As quoted in Saudi women 'still enslaved', says activist as driving ban ends http://news.trust.org/item/20180622172634-f882k/ (22 June 2018) by Heba Kanso, Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Parting, Happiness

“Some women choose to follow men, and some women choose to follow their dreams. If you’re wondering which way to go, remember that your career will never wake up and tell you that it doesn't love you anymore.”

Lady Gaga (1986) American singer, songwriter, and actress

Cosmopolitan (April 2010).

Inspirational, Love, Men, Dreams

“I thought I should make something – I felt it would be so easy – it would take form under my hands like magic.
Then people would see!
A strong naked arm – a tanned powerful neck a young woman rests her head on the arching chest.
She closes her eyes and listens with open and quivering lips to the words he whispers into her long flowing hair.
I should paint that image just as I saw it – but in the blue haze.
Those two at that moment, no longer merely themselves, but simply a link in the chain binding generation to generation.
People should understand the significance, the power of it. They should remove their hats like they do in church.
There should be no more pictures of interiors, of people reading and women knitting.
There would be pictures of real people who breathed, suffered, felt, loved.
I felt impelled – it would be easy. The flesh would have volume – the colours would be alive.
There was an interval. The music stopped. I was a little sad. I remembered how many times I had had similar thoughts – and that once I had finished the painting – they had simply shaken their heads and smiled.
Once again I found myself out on the Boulevard des Italiens.”

Edvard Munch (1863–1944) Norwegian painter and printmaker

written in Saint Cloud, 1889
Quotes from his text: 'Saint Cloud Manifesto', Munch (1889): as quoted in Edvard Much – behind the scream, Sue Prideaux; Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2007, pp. 120 -121
1880 - 1895

Love, People, Sadness, Smile

“Hope is the bedrock of this nation. The belief that our destiny will not be written for us, but by us, by all those men and women who are not content to settle for the world as it is, who have the courage to remake the world as it should be.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

Iowa Caucus Victory Speech, Delivered at the Iowa Democratic caucus on 3 January 2008 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNZaq-YKCnE 2008

Men, World, Hope, Courage

“Now, women hold a majority of lower-wage jobs, but they're not the only ones stifled by stagnant wages. Americans understand that some people will earn more money than others, and we don't resent those who, by virtue of their efforts, achieve incredible success. That's what America's all about. But Americans overwhelmingly agree that no one who works full-time should ever have to raise a family in poverty.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2014, Sixth State of the Union Address (January 2014)

Money, People, Family, Understanding

“My problem in this situation is to know whether I should have blushed before or if l should be blushing now, I can recall having seen you blush once, When, When I touched the rose in your office, Women blush more easily than men, we're the weaker sex, Both sexes are weak, I was also blushing, How come you know so much about the weakness of the sexes, I know my own weakness, and something about the weakness of others.”

José Saramago (1922–2010) Portuguese writer and recipient of the 1998 Nobel Prize in Literature

O meu problema, nesta situação, é saber se já deveria ter corado antes, ou se é agora que devo corar, Lembro-me de a ter visto corar uma vez, Quando, Quando toquei na rosa que estava no seu gabinete, As mulheres coram mais que os homens, somos o sexo frágil, Ambos os sexos são frágeis, eu também corei, Sabe assim tanto da fragilidade dos sexos, Sei da minha própria fragilidade, e alguma coisa da dos outros.
Source: The History of the Siege of Lisbon (1989), p. 219

Men, Sex, Problem

“We are the party of big guns, fast cars, and hot women. If you can't sell freedom to the American people then you're in the wrong line of work.”

Bill Whittle (1959) author, director, screenwriter, editor

citation needed

People, Cars, Freedom

“When women are angry at men, they call them heartless. When men are angry at women, they call them crazy.”

Susanna Kaysen (1948) American writer

Susan Cheever, "A Designated Crazy," The New York Times Book Review, June 20, 1993. (Reviewing Kaysen's Girl, Interrupted.)
On Girl, Interrupted

Men

“I will never forget who this victory truly belongs to. It belongs to you. It belongs to you.
I was never the likeliest candidate for this office. We didn't start with much money or many endorsements. Our campaign was not hatched in the halls of Washington. It began in the backyards of Des Moines and the living rooms of Concord and the front porches of Charleston. It was built by working men and women who dug into what little savings they had to give $5 and $10 and $20 to the cause.
It grew strength from the young people who rejected the myth of their generation's apathy who left their homes and their families for jobs that offered little pay and less sleep.
It drew strength from the not-so-young people who braved the bitter cold and scorching heat to knock on doors of perfect strangers, and from the millions of Americans who volunteered and organized and proved that more than two centuries later a government of the people, by the people, and for the people has not perished from the Earth.
This is your victory.
And I know you didn't do this just to win an election. And I know you didn't do it for me.
You did it because you understand the enormity of the task that lies ahead. For even as we celebrate tonight, we know the challenges that tomorrow will bring are the greatest of our lifetime — two wars, a planet in peril, the worst financial crisis in a century.
Even as we stand here tonight, we know there are brave Americans waking up in the deserts of Iraq and the mountains of Afghanistan to risk their lives for us.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2008, Election victory speech (November 2008)

Men, Money, War, People

“What happens when everyone in a society is finally beautiful (and healthy)? When the final aesthetic surgery is developed that will make all visages and bodies "perfect"? Will everyone in that society be happy? In examining the discourses of the late nineteenth century on this question, we are confronted with the paradox of François Xavier Bichat, as paraphrased by Charles Darwin: "If everyone were cast in the same mould, there would be no such thing as beauty. If all our women were to become as beautiful as the Venus de’ Medici (de Milo), we should for a time be charmed; but we should soon wish for variety; and as soon as we had obtained variety, we should wish to see certain characters a little exaggerated beyond the then existing common standard.””

Sander Gilman (1944) American historian

The very search for the improvement of the body (and the concomitant “happiness” of the psyche) must lead to further discontent.
page 39.
Creating Beauty to Cure the Soul (1998)

Beauty, Search, Question, Time

“That was the burden,' she mused, 'laid on me in the cradle; murmured by waves; breathed by restless elm trees; crooned by singing women; what we must rememeber; what we would forget.”

Virginia Woolf book Between the Acts

Between the Acts (1941)

Tree, Singing, Forgetting

“In some ways, though, the securing of civil rights, voting rights, the eradication of legalized discrimination -- the very significance of these victories may have obscured a second goal of the March. For the men and women who gathered 50 years ago were not there in search of some abstract ideal. They were there seeking jobs as well as justice, not just the absence of oppression but the presence of economic opportunity. For what does it profit a man, Dr. King would ask, to sit at an integrated lunch counter if he can’t afford the meal? This idea -- that one’s liberty is linked to one’s livelihood; that the pursuit of happiness requires the dignity of work, the skills to find work, decent pay, some measure of material security -- this idea was not new. Lincoln himself understood the Declaration of Independence in such terms -- as a promise that in due time, “the weights should be lifted from the shoulders of all men, and that all should have an equal chance.””

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2013, "Let Freedom Ring" Ceremony (August 2013)

Men, Justice, Way, Search

“…when I am told that my ploughmen are capable citizens, it seems to me ridiculous to say that educated women are not just as capable. A good deal of the political battle of the future will be a conflict between religion and unbelief: & the women will in that controversy be on the right side.”

Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) British politician

Letter to Lady John Manners (14 June 1884), from Paul Smith (ed.), Lord Salisbury on politics: a selection from his articles in the Quarterly Review, 1860–83 (1972), p. 18, footnote
1880s

Education, Religion, Future

“If, then, one should try to sum up the character of women's fiction at the present moment, one would say that it is courageous; it is sincere; it keeps closely to what women feel. It is not bitter. It does not insist upon its femininity.”

Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) English writer

"Women and Fiction"
Granite and Rainbow (1958)

Feeling, Courage, Sincerity

“People mistake L. Ron Hubbard and his Scientology. They see the apparency, and not the actuality. By design. Scientology does not work as stated; but as intended. As intended by its creator L Ron Hubbard. To keep the Doorway open. To remain in the realm of the Great Beast. To feed the hunger of the Will. His Will. When he emptied the purse of man and the heart of women; it seeks onward and outward. Appetite. Forever appetite. Scientology is the snare. The passion flower. the Cloak of Lights. The glow of power. A power always wanting. Always needing. The Will never satisfied.”

Ronald DeWolf (1934–1991) American critic of Scientology

The Telling of Me, by Me (1981)

Hunger, People, Flowers, Light

“On this occasion, despite the wind and sparkling stars, they looked just like huge chunks of stone, pathetically chiseled by desperate folk to resemble stern gods. People did bizarre things when they were afraid…as most men and women had been for nearly all the time since the species evolved.”

David Brin book Earth

Part VIII (p. 480)
Earth (1990)

Men, God, People, Star

“For ourselves, who are ordinary men and women, let us return thanks to Nature for her bounty by using every one of the senses she has given us; vary our state as much as possible; turn now this side, now that, to the warmth, and relish to the full before the sun goes down the kisses of youth and the echoes of a beautiful voice singing Catullus. Every season is likeable, and wet days and fine, red wine and white, company and solitude. Even sleep, that deplorable curtailment of the joy of life, can be full of dreams; and the most common actions—a walk, a talk, solitude in one’s own orchard—can be enhanced and lit up by the association of the mind. Beauty is everywhere, and beauty is only two finger’s-breadth from goodness.”

Virginia Woolf The Common Reader

"Montaigne" http://teaching.quotidiana.org/essays/Woolf_Montaigne.html The Common Reader (1925)

Life, Men, Youth, Beauty

“Comrades, Red Army and Red Navy men, commanders and political instructors, men and women guerrillas! The whole world is looking to you as a force capable of destroying the brigand hordes of German invaders. The enslaved peoples of Europe under the yoke of the German invaders are looking to you as their liberators. A great mission of liberation has fallen to your lot. Be worthy of this mission! The war you are waging is a war of liberation, a just war.”

Joseph Stalin (1879–1953) General secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

Speech on the 24th Anniversary of the Revolution
Stalin's speeches, writings and authorised interviews

Men, War, People, World

“All classes, therefore, must be brought under women’s influence; for all require to be reminded constantly of the great truth that Reason and Activity are subordinate to Feeling. Of their influence upon philosophers I have spoken. If they are men worthy of their mission, they will be conscious of the tendency which their life has to harden them and lead them into useless speculation; and they will feel the need of renewing the ardour of their social sympathy at its native source. Feeling, when it is pure and deep, corrects its own errors, because they clash with the good to which it is ever tending. But erroneous use of the intellectual or practical faculties, cannot be even recognized, much less corrected, without the aid of Affection, which is the only part of our nature that suffers directly from such errors. Therefore whenever either the philosopher or the people deviate from duty, it will be the part of women to remonstrate with them gently, and recall them to the true social principles which are entrusted to their special charge.”

Auguste Comte (1798–1857) French philosopher

Source: A General View of Positivism (1848, 1856), p. 253-254

Life, Men, People, Truth

“What, however, is our relation to revolution? Civil war is the most severe of all forms of war. It is unthinkable not only without violence against tertiary figures but, under contemporary technique, without murdering old men, old women and children… There is no impervious demarcation between ‘peaceful’ class struggle and revolution. Every strike embodies in an unexpanded form all the elements of civil war.”

Leon Trotsky (1879–1940) Marxist revolutionary from Russia

Their Morals and Ours (1938)

Men, War, Children, Peace

“If women are expected to do the same work as men, we must teach them the same things.”

Saul Bellow (1915–2005) Canadian-born American writer

If women are to have the same duties as men, they must have the same nurture and education. — Plato, The Republic, Book V, trans. Benjamin Jowett, third edition, Oxford University Press, 1892 http://oll.libertyfund.org/Home3/HTML.php?recordID=0345#hd_lf131.3.head.017 Misattributed Variant: So if we are going to use men and women for the same purposes, they must be taught the same things. The Republic, trans. Desmond Lee [Penguin Classics, 2003, ISBN 0-140-449140-0], p. 161 Variant: Then if we are to use the women for the same things as the men, we must teach them the same things. The Republic, trans. W. H. D. Rouse [Signet Classic, 1999, ISBN 0-451-52745-3], p. 249

Men

“I knew if I quit, nobody would ever believe that women had the capability to run 26-plus miles. If I quit, everybody would say it was a publicity stunt. If I quit, it would set women’s sports back, way back, instead of forward. If I quit, I’d never run Boston. If I quit, Jock Semple and all those like him would win. My fear and humiliation turned to anger.”

Kathrine Switzer (1947) American distance runner

Source: http://kathrineswitzer.com/about-kathrine/1967-boston-marathon-the-real-story/

Fear, Way, Sport, Anger

“And because they kept marching, America changed. Because they marched, a Civil Rights law was passed. Because they marched, a Voting Rights law was signed. Because they marched, doors of opportunity and education swung open so their daughters and sons could finally imagine a life for themselves beyond washing somebody else’s laundry or shining somebody else’s shoes. Because they marched, city councils changed and state legislatures changed, and Congress changed, and, yes, eventually, the White House changed. Because they marched, America became more free and more fair -- not just for African Americans, but for women and Latinos, Asians and Native Americans; for Catholics, Jews, and Muslims; for gays, for Americans with a disability. America changed for you and for me. and the entire world drew strength from that example, whether the young people who watched from the other side of an Iron Curtain and would eventually tear down that wall, or the young people inside South Africa who would eventually end the scourge of apartheid.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2013, "Let Freedom Ring" Ceremony (August 2013)

Life, People, World, Education

“Woman is a violent and uncontrolled animal, and it is useless to let go the reins and then expect her not to kick over the traces. You must keep her on a tight rein […] Women want total freedom or rather - to call things by their names - total licence. If you allow them to achieve complete equality with men, do you think they will be easier to live with? Not at all. Once they have achieved equality, they will be your masters …”

Cato the Elder (-234–-149 BC) politician, writer and economist (0234-0149)

This is composed of excerpts (with some paraphrasing) from a speech of Cato as reported in Livy's History of Rome, book 34, sections 2-4 http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/txt/ah/Livy/Livy34.html. Misattributed

Men, Thinking, Freedom, Animals

“What do you say about making a libation out of this cup to any god? …I may and I must pray to the gods to prosper my journey from this to that other world—may this, then, which is my prayer, be granted to me. [Then holding the cup to his lips, quite readily and cheerfully he drank off the poison. And hitherto most of us had been able to control their sorrow; but now, when we saw him drinking, and saw too, that he had finished the draft, we could no longer forbear, and in spite of myself my own tears were flowing fast; so that I covered my face and wept over myself, for certainly I was not weeping over him, but at my own calamity at having lost such a companion. Nor was I the first, for Crito, when he found himself unable to restrain his tears, had got up, and moved away, and I followed; and at that moment, Apollodorus, who had been weeping all the time, broke out in a loud cry which made cowards of us all. Socrates alone retained his calmness:] What is this strange outcry? …I sent away the women mainly in order that they might not offend in this way, for I have heard that a man should die in peace. Be quiet then, and have patience.”

Socrates (-470–-399 BC) classical Greek Athenian philosopher

Plato, Phaedo

God, World, Peace, Way

“The Führer has nominated me as his successor. In full consciousness of my responsibilities I therefore assume the leadership of the German people at this fateful hour. My first task is to save German men and women from destruction by the advancing Bolshevist enemy. It is to serve this purpose alone that the military struggle continues. For as long as the British and the Americans continue to impede the accomplishments of this task, we must also continue to fight and defend ourselves against them. The British and the Americans in that case will not be fighting in the interests of their own peoples, but solely for the expansion of Bolshevism in Europe.”

Karl Dönitz (1891–1980) President of Germany; admiral in command of German submarine forces during World War II

May 1, 1945, quoted in "Memoirs: Ten Years And Twenty Days" - Page 445 - by Grand Admiral Karl Doenitz - History - 1997.

Men, Fate, People, Fight

“Small business is the gateway to opportunity for those who want a piece of the American dream. […] Well, wouldn't it be nice to hear a little more about the forgotten heroes of America-those who create most of our new jobs, like the owners of stores down the street; the faithfuls who support our churches, synagogues, schools, and communities; the brave men and women everywhere who produce our goods, feed a hungry world, and keep our families warm while they invest in the future to build a better America? That's where miracles are made, not in Washington, D. C.”

Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)

Ronald Reagan: "Remarks at the National Conference of the National Federation of Independent Business ," June 22, 1983. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=41504 1980s, First term of office (1981–1985)

Men, World, School, Family

“Just ask yourselves, historians, when was monogamy introduced on to the face of the earth? When those buccaneers, who settled on the peninsula where Rome now stands, could not steal women enough to have two or three apiece, they passed a law that a man should have but one woman. And this started monogamy and the downfall of the plurality system. In the days of Jesus, Rome, having dominion over Jerusalem, they carried out the doctrine more or less. This was the rise, start and foundation of the doctrine of monogamy; and never till then was there a law passed, that we have any knowledge of, that a man should have but one wife.”

Brigham Young (1801–1877) Latter Day Saint movement leader

Journal of Discourses 12:262 (Aug. 9, 1868)
1860s

Law, Knowledge

“Oh, it's — it's a sort of bloom on a woman. If you have it, you don't need to have anything else; and if you don't have it, it doesn't much matter what else you have. Some women, the few, have charm for all; and most have charm for one. But some have charm for none.”

J. M. Barrie What Every Woman Knows

Act I
What Every Woman Knows (1908)

“The democrats had just been whipped in Ohio and Pennsylvania, and seized upon the unfortunate Harper's Ferry affair to influence other elections then pending. They said to each other, 'Jump in, now's your chance', and were sorry there were not more killed. But they didn't succeed well. Let them go on with their howling. They will succeed when by slandering women you get them to love you, and by slandering men you get them to vote for you.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

1860s, Speech at Hartford (1860)

Love, Men, Chance

“I have wanted to give Iraq a lesson in democracy — because we’re experienced with it, you know. And, in democracy, after a hundred years, you have to let your slaves go. And, after a hundred and fifty years, you have to let your women vote. And, at the beginning of democracy, is that quite a bit of genocide and ethnic cleansing is quite okay. And that’s what’s going on now.”

Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007) American writer

Interviewed by Jon Stewart on The Daily Show http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=18090&title=kurt-vonnegut/ (13 September 2005) Various interviews

Democracy

“Women had to work like slaves in the art world, but a lot of men got to the top through their charm. And it hurt them. To be young and pretty didn't help a woman in the art world, because the social scene, and the buying scene, was in the hands of women – women who had money. They wanted male artists who would come alone and be their charming guests. Rothko could be very charming. It was a court. And the artist buffoons came to the court to entertain, to charm. Now it has changed, now the younger men are in – older women and younger men.”

Louise Bourgeois (1911–2010) American and French sculptor

Louise Bourgeois, ‎Donald Burton Kuspit (1988). Bourgeois. p. 76: On the art world

Men, Money, World, Art

“We believe that strong, successful countries require strong and vibrant civil societies. We know that throughout our history, human progress has been propelled not just by famous leaders, not just by states, but by ordinary men and women who believe that change is possible; by citizens who are willing to stand up against incredible odds and great danger not only to protect their own rights, but to extend rights to others.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2015, Remarks at Panama Civil Society Forum (April 2015)

Men, History, Strong, Change

“It is not to be supposed that young men and women who are busy acquiring valuable specialized knowledge can spare a great deal of time for the study of philosophy, but even in the time that can easily be spared without injury to the learning of technical skills, philosophy can give certain things that will greatly increase the student’s value as a human being and as a citizen. It can give a habit of exact and careful thought, not only in mathematics and science, but in questions of large practical import. It can give an impersonal breadth and scope to the conception of the ends of life. It can give to the individual a just measure of himself in relation to society, of man in the present to man in the past and in the future, and of the whole history of man in relation to the astronomical cosmos. By enlarging the objects of his thoughts it supplies an antidote to the anxieties and anguish of the present, and makes possible the nearest approach to serenity that is available to a sensitive mind in our tortured and uncertain world.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

1940s, Philosophy for Laymen (1946)

Life, Men, World, History

“Feminism has taught women to sue men for sexual harassment or date rape when men initiate with the wrong person or with the wrong timing; no one has taught men to sue women for sexual trauma for saying “yes,” then “no,” then “yes.” … Men [are] still expected to initiate, but now, if they [do] it badly, they could go to jail.”

Warren Farrell book The Myth of Male Power

Source: The Myth of Male Power (1993), Part 1: The Myth of Male Power, p. 16.

Men, Time, Personality

“Women that bear children must exist in Zululand only.”

Shaka (1787–1828) leader of the Zulu Kingdom

Statement advocating genocidal policies against tribes which opposed his conquests, as reported in Lessons on Leadership by Terror : Finding Shaka Zulu in the Attic (2005) by Manfred F.R. Kets de Vries, p. 40

Children

“There's not a stupidest thing--I've dressed in women's clothes, I've dressed as a Nazi. I've gone onstage naked. I've gone on so drunk I didn't even know I did a show. I've done so many stupid things, but it's all part of Ozzy. I never pre-planned 99.9% of the things I've done. Some were drastically wrong, some were drastically right. I don't know if you saw the VH1 thing [VH1's Behind The Music Ozzy documentary] recently. In one hour, it's impossible to write my life down. I come from a rather large family, three older sisters and two younger brothers. On the documentary, they interviewed my sister and it was the first time I'd seen her in years. I've had a very, very unique life. I often sit back and remember when I had no money--when you're in the middle of it, you get depressed thinking it's going to last forever. All of a sudden, out of nowhere--a bolt of lightning--here I am! I'm very well-off; I've got property all over the place, I've had a very fruitful career. But I've never had a No.1 album in America. But I've lasted several generations and somebody says to me, "Do you notice any difference in the audience?"”

Ozzy Osbourne (1948) English heavy metal vocalist and songwriter

I've been doing it now for 30 years. Some of the fans are older, but I've picked up new fans along the way.

Launch.com, October 30, 1998

Life, Money, Stupidity, Family

“Oh father high in heaven — smile down upon your son
Who's busy with his money games — his women and his gun.”

Ian Anderson (1947) Scottish musician, leader of Jethro Tull

"Hymn 43"
Aqualung (1971)

Money, Smile, Game, Business

“There is violence and injustice in our world that must be confronted. We must confront it not by splitting apart but by standing together as free nations, as free people. I know that a call to arms can stir the souls of men and women more than a call to lay them down. But that is why the voices for peace and progress must be raised together.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2009, A World without Nuclear Weapons (April 2009)

Men, People, World, Peace

“Outstanding American men seem to see power as something you use in order to correct someone who's wrong, to change them, to show them you see more in this situation than the boss does. Outstanding American women, on the other hand, see power as a resource, something you can use to get people together, to gain commitment.”

David C. McClelland (1917–1998) American psychological theorist

David C. McClelland (1998) in: Katherine Adams, "Interview by David C. McClelland , in Competency, vol. 4 no.3, Spring 1997, pp.18–23; Republished in orientamento.it http://www.orientamento.it/indice/interview-with-mcclelland/, 19/11/2015

Men, People, Change

“When Miss Nochlin says: 'If women have in fact achieved the same status as men in the arts, then the status quo is fine as it is.' Well, I think the status quo in the arts is fine as it is - in this country [America] at least, women have exactly the same chance that men do. There are the same schools, museums, galleries, books, art stores. There are no obstacles in the way of a woman becoming a painter or sculptor other than the usual obstacles that any artist has to face.”

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)

Men, Books, School, Art

“Don’t buy into the idea that women aren’t strong enough to do anything they want on their own.”

Cher (1946) American singer and actress

‘"Cher Genius", You magazine, the Mail on Sunday (UK) newspaper (28 November 2010)

Idea, Strong

“You can't have the conversation about rights without the conversation about responsibility, because your rights are my responsibility. That's what they are technically. So, you just can't have only half of that discussion. And we're only having half of that discussion. Then the questions is, 'well what are you leaving out if you're only having that half of the discussion.' And the answer is, 'well, you're leaving out responsibility.' And then the questions is, 'Well, what are you leaving out if you're leaving out responsibility.' And the answer might be: 'Well maybe you're leaving out the meaning of life.' Here you are, suffering away. What makes it worthwhile? Rights? It's almost impossible to describe how bad an idea that is. Responsibility. That's what gives life meaning. Lift a load. Then you can tolerate yourself. Look at yourself. You're useless. Easily hurt. Easily killed. Why should you have any self-respect? Pick something up and carry it. Make it heavy enough so that you can think, yah, well, useless as I am, at least I can move that from there to there. For men, there's nothing but responsibility. Women have their sets of responsibilities. They're not the same. Women have to take primary responsibility for having infants at least, then also for caring for them. They're structured differently than men for biological necessity. Women know what they have to do. Men have to figure out what they have to do. And if they have nothing worth living for, then they stay Peter Pan. And why the hell not? The alternative to valued responsibility is low class pleasure. Why lift a load if there's nothing in it for you? And that's what we're doing to men and boys that's a very bad idea. Basically we give them the message, 'you're pathological and oppressive.' They often respond, 'fine then, why the hell should I play? If I get no credit for bearing responsibility, then you can be sure I won't bear any.”

Jordan Peterson (1962) Canadian clinical psychologist, cultural critic, and professor of psychology

Then your life is useless and meaningless, and you're full of self contempt and nihilism, and that's not good. And so that's what I think is going on at a deeper level with regard to men needing this direction. A man has to decide that he's going to do something. He has to decide that."
Concepts

Life, Men, Pleasure, Boy

“Of all the horrid brutalities of our age, I know of none so horrid as those that are sanctioned and defended by marriage. Night after night, there are thousands of rapes committed, under cover of this accursed license; and millions—yes I say it boldly, knowing whereof I speak—millions of poor, heart broken, suffering wives are compelled to minister to the lechery of insatiable husbands, when every instinct of body and sentiment of soul revolts in lathing and disgust…. The world has got to be startled from this pretense into realizing that there is nothing else now existing among pretendedly enlightened nations, except marriage, that invests men with the right to debauch women, sexually, against their wills, yet marriage is held to be synonymous with morality! I say, eternal damnation, sink such morality! …”

Victoria Woodhull (1838–1927) American suffragist

Tried As By Fire, or The True and The False, Socially, speech, 1874, quoted in Gabriel, Mary, Notorious Victoria: The Life of Victoria Woodhull, Uncensored (Chapel Hill, N.Car.: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 1st ed. 1998 ISBN 1-56512-132-5, p. 222 & n. [20] (each ellipsis or set of suspension points so in original) (author Mary Gabriel journalist, Reuters News Service), in turn as reprinted in Stern, Madeleine B., ed., The Victoria Woodhull Reader (Weston, Mass.: M&S Press, 1974).

Men, Marriage, Age, World

“But for all those who scratched and clawed their way to get a piece of the American Dream, there were many who didn't make it - those who were ultimately defeated, in one way or another, by discrimination. That legacy of defeat was passed on to future generations - those young men and increasingly young women who we see standing on street corners or languishing in our prisons, without hope or prospects for the future. Even for those blacks who did make it, questions of race, and racism, continue to define their world-view in fundamental ways. For the men and women of Reverend Wright’s generation, the memories of humiliation and doubt and fear have not gone away; nor has the anger and the bitterness of those years.
That anger may not get expressed in public, in front of white co-workers or white friends. But it does find voice in the barbershop, or the beauty shop, or around the kitchen table. At times, that anger is exploited by politicians, to gin up votes along racial lines, or to make up for a politician's own failing. And occasionally it finds voice in the church on Sunday morning, in the pulpit and in the pews. The fact that so many people are surprised to hear that anger in some of Reverend Wright's sermons simply reminds us of the old truism that the most segregated hour of American life occurs on Sunday morning.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2008, A More Perfect Union (March 2008)

Life, Men, People, World

“And throughout this process, Michelle and I, we just have been your frontmen and women. We have been the face, sometimes the voice, out front on the TV screen or in front of the microphone, but this has never been about us. It has always been about you. And all the amazing things that happened over these last 10 years are really just a testament to you. In the same way that when we talk about our amazing military and our men and women in uniform, the military is not a thing. It's a group of committed patriots willing to sacrifice everything on our behalf. It works only because of the people in it. As cool as the hardware is, and we have cool hardware, as cool as the machines and weapons and satellites are, ultimately it comes down to remarkable people.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2017, Farewell to Staff Members (January 2017)

Men, People, Way

“As we do every time this year, Presidents and Prime Ministers converge on this great city to advance important work. But as leaders, we are not the most important people here today. It is the civil society leaders who, in many ways, are going to have the more lasting impact, because as the saying goes, the most important title is not president or prime minister; the most important title is citizen. It is citizens -- ordinary men and women, determined to forge their own future -- who throughout history have sparked all the great change and progress.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2014, Remarks at Clinton Global Initiative (September 2014)

Men, People, Way, History

“Mahommad bin Qasim's first act of religious zeal was forcibly to circumcise the Brahmins of the captured city of Debul; but on discovering that they objected to this sort of conversion, he proceeded to put all above the age of 17 to death, and to order all others, with women and children, to be led into slavery. The temple of the Hindus was looted, and the rich booty was divided equally among the soldiers, after one-fifth, the legal portion for the government, had been set aside.”

Muhammad bin Qasim (695–715) Umayyad general

B.R. Ambedkar, Pakistan or The Partition of India (1946)

Death, Children, Age

“As regards capital cases, the trouble is that emotional men and women always see only the individual whose fate is up at the moment, and neither his victim nor the many millions of unknown individuals who would in the long run be harmed by what they ask. Moreover, almost any criminal, however brutal, has usually some person, often a person whom he has greatly wronged, who will plead for him. If the mother is alive she will always come, and she cannot help feeling that the case in which she is so concerned is peculiar, that in this case a pardon should be granted. It was really heartrending to have to see the kinfolk and friends of murderers who were condemned to death, and among the very rare occasions when anything governmental or official caused me to lose sleep were times when I had to listen to some poor mother making a plea for a "criminal" so wicked, so utterly brutal and depraved, that it would have been a crime on my part to remit his punishment.
On the other hand, there were certain crimes where requests for leniency merely made me angry. Such crimes were, for instance, rape, or the circulation of indecent literature, or anything connected with what would now be called the "white slave" traffic, or wife murder, or gross cruelty to women or children, or seduction and abandonment, or the action of some man in getting a girl whom he seduced to commit abortion. In an astonishing number of these cases men of high standing signed petitions or wrote letters asking me to show leniency to the criminal. In two or three of the cases — one where some young roughs had committed rape on a helpless immigrant girl, and another in which a physician of wealth and high standing had seduced a girl and then induced her to commit abortion — I rather lost my temper, and wrote to the individuals who had asked for the pardon, saying that I extremely regretted that it was not in my power to increase the sentence. I then let the facts be made public, for I thought that my petitioners deserved public censure. Whether they received this public censure or not I did not know, but that my action made them very angry I do know, and their anger gave me real satisfaction.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

Source: 1910s, Theodore Roosevelt — An Autobiography (1913), Ch. VIII : The New York Governorship

Death, Men, Fate, Children

“I’ve rejoiced with you and mourned with you, what I have also seen, more than anything, is what is right with America. I see people working hard and starting businesses. I see people teaching kids and serving our country. I see engineers inventing stuff, doctors coming up with new cures. I see a younger generation full of energy and new ideas, not constrained by what is, ready to seize what ought to be.
And most of all, I see Americans of every party, every background, every faith who believe that we are stronger together — black, white, Latino, Asian, Native American; young, old; gay, straight; men, women, folks with disabilities, all pledging allegiance, under the same proud flag, to this big, bold country that we love. That's what I see. That's the America I know!”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2016, DNC Address (July 2016)

Love, Men, People, Faith

“The bishops play the hero and say they are ready to fight, even if it costs them their lives. The fight against whom? Against the people's government, of course, against our new democratic Yugoslavia … But how is it that the bishops did not issue this kind of pastoral letter, to be read in all the churches, in the days of Pavelić and the Germans, against those terrible massacres of Serbs in Croatia in which hundreds of thousands of women, children and menfolk lost their lives?”

Josip Broz Tito (1892–1980) Yugoslav revolutionary and statesman

Jasper Ridley, Tito: A Biography (Constable and Company Ltd., 1994), p. 278.
Other

Children, People, Reading, Fight

“In my memoir, I wanted to introduce American women to Iranian women and our lives. I'm not from the highest echelons of society, nor the lowest. I'm a women who is a lawyer, who is a professor at a university, who won the Nobel Peace Prize. At the same time, I cook. And even when I'm about to go to prison, one of the first things I do is to make enough food and put it in the fridge for my family.”

Shirin Ebadi (1947) Iranian lawyer, human rights activist, and Nobel Peace Prize recipient

From 2006 interview with Ebadi by New America Media editor Brian Shott (translator, Banafsheh Keynoush) about her newly released book, Iran Awakening: A Memoir of Revolution and Hope. New America Media, 2006. http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=8ad8e36442c10ef7fc33f0c8e70c08d8 (retrieved Oct. 15, 2008)

Family, Peace, Food, Universe

“Grace in women has more effect than beauty.”

William Hazlitt book The Round Table

"On Manner"
The Round Table (1815-1817)

Beauty

“… it is shameful that there are so few women in science… In China there are many, many women in physics. There is a misconception in America that women scientists are all dowdy spinsters. This is the fault of men. In Chinese society, a woman is valued for what she is, and men encourage her to accomplishments yet she remains eternally feminine.”

Chien-Shiung Wu (1912–1997) Chinese American experimental physicist

As quoted in "Queen of Physics", Newsweek (20 May 1963) no. 61, 20.

Men, Science

“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

Men

“The marvel of all history is the patience with which men and women submit to burdens unnecessarily laid upon them by their governments.”

George Washington (1732–1799) first President of the United States

US Senator William Edgar Borah, writing in The Reader's Digest, Vol. 8, Issue 2 (1929), p. 776; this has only rarely begun to be attributed to Washington, since about 2010.
Misattributed

Men, History, Patience

“The Church acknowledges the indispensable contribution which women make to society through the sensitivity, intuition and other distinctive skill sets which they, more than men, tend to possess. I think, for example, of the special concern which women show to others, which finds a particular, even if not exclusive, expression in motherhood. I readily acknowledge that many women share pastoral responsibilities with priests, helping to guide people, families and groups and offering new contributions to theological reflection. But we need to create still broader opportunities for a more incisive female presence in the Church. Because “the feminine genius is needed in all expressions in the life of society, the presence of women must also be guaranteed in the workplace”[72] and in the various other settings where important decisions are made, both in the Church and in social structures.”

Pope Francis (1936) 266th Pope of the Catholic Church

Section 103
2010s, 2013, Evangelii Gaudium · The Joy of the Gospel

Life, Men, People, Family

“It is hard to consider women a 'discrete and insular minority', unable to employ the 'political processes ordinarily to be relied upon' when they constitute a majority of the electorate. And the suggestion that they are incapable of exerting that political power smacks of the same paternalism that the Court so roundly condemns.”

Antonin Scalia (1936–2016) former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

On legal paternalism: United States v. Virginia (1996) (dissenting).
1990s

“No longer shall I paint interiors with men reading and women knitting. I will paint living people who breathe and feel and suffer and love.”

Edvard Munch (1863–1944) Norwegian painter and printmaker

Quote from Munch's text (1889) 'Impressions from a ballroom, New Year's Eve in St. Cloud' - also known as 'The St. Cloud Manifesto'
1880 - 1895

Love, Men, People, Feeling

“Lord Illingworth: Women have become too brilliant. Nothing spoils a romance so much as a sense of humour in the woman.
Mrs. Allonby: Or the want of it in the man.”

Oscar Wilde A Woman of No Importance

Act I http://books.google.com/books?id=RHkWAAAAYAAJ&q=%22Women+have+become+too+brilliant+Nothing+spoils+a+romance+so+much+as+a+sense+of+humour+in+the+woman%22+%22or+the+want+of+it+in+the+man%22&pg=PA34#v=onepage A Woman of No Importance (1893)

Sense

“I don't… like… girls… whining… and complaining… about… wanting a man! I never liked Sex and the City, the kind of thing where women only feel empowered once they find the Man. It is just not up my alley. I don't believe in it. There is nothing you can control about love. Somebody once said, Everything you want in the world is just right outside your comfort zone. Everythingyoucouldpossiblywant!”

Jennifer Aniston (1969) television and film actress from the United States

Interview for Vogue magazine (December 2008)

Love, World, Sex, Feeling

“Women believed in death. Without exception. It was part of their makeup. Whereas men refused to face up to it. Not only death, in fact, but life, too: a man, learning that his wife or girlfriend is pregnant, reacts like some beast of the field - "I can't believe it's true!" - while women look at the same situation as either happy news or a momentary inconvenience.”

Françoise Sagan (1935–2004) French writer

Un chagrin de passage (1994, A Fleeting Sorrow, translated 1995)

Life, Death, Men, Learning

“As a man's conduct is controlled by public fact, so is her religion ruled by authority. The daughter should follow her mother's religion, the wife her husband's. Were that religion false, the docility which leads mother and daughter to submit to nature's laws would blot out the sin of error in the sight of Goddess. Unable to judge for themselves they should accept the judgment of father and husband as that of the church. While men unaided cannot deduce the rules of their faith, neither can they assign limits to that faith by the evidence of reason; they allow themselves to be driven hither and thither by all sorts of external influences, they are ever above or below the truth. Extreme in everything, they are either altogether reckless or altogether pious; you never find them able to combine virtue and piety. Their natural exaggeration is not wholly to blame; the ill-regulated control exercised over them by men is partly responsible. Loose morals bring religion into contempt; the terrors of remorse make it a tyrant; this is why women have always too much or too little religion. As a woman's religion is controlled by authority it is more important to show her plainly what to believe than to explain the reasons for belief; for faith attached to ideas half-understood is the main source of fanaticism, and faith demanded on behalf of what is absurd leads to madness or unbelief. Whether our catechisms tend to produce impiety rather than fanaticism I cannot say, but I do know that they lead to one or other. In the first place, when you teach religion to little girls never make it gloomy or tiresome, never make it a task or a duty, and therefore never give them anything to learn by heart, not even their prayers. Be content to say your own prayers regularly in their presence, but do not compel them to join you. Let their prayers be short, as Christ himself has taught us. Let them always be said with becoming reverence and respect; remember that if we ask the Almighty to give heed to our words, we should at least give heed to what we mean to say.”

Jean Jacques Rousseau book Emile, or On Education

Emile, or On Education (1762), Book V

Men, Truth, Faith, Religion

“The tendency of women to push aside man, supplanting the old spirit of cooperation with him in all the affairs of life, is very disappointing to me.”

Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) Serbian American inventor

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

Life, Disappointment

“"Nothing", I said sadly. "They are two delightful women!" "And neither of them is for you?" finished Poirot. "Never mind. Console yourself, my friend. We may hunt together again, who knows?"”

Agatha Christie book The Mysterious Affair at Styles

The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920)

“The female defects – greed, hate, and delusion and other defilements – are greater than the male’s…You [women] should have such an intention…Because I wish to be freed from the impurities of the woman’s body, I will acquire the beautiful and fresh body of a man.”

Aurelius Augustinus (354–430) early Christian theologian and philosopher

Saint Augustine as quoted by Dr Bettany Hughes Telegraph http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-life/11785181/Feminism-started-with-the-Buddha-and-Confucius-25-centuries-ago.html Disputed

Hate, Beauty

“It is a woman's outstanding characteristic that she can do anything for the love of a man. But those women who can achieve something important for the love of a thing are most exceptional, because this does not really agree with their nature. Love for a thing is a man's prerogative. But since masculine and feminine elements are united in our human nature, a man can live in the feminine part of himself, I and a woman in her masculine part. None the less the feminine element in man is only something in the background, as is the masculine element in woman. If one lives out the opposite sex in oneself one is living in one's own background, and one's real individuality suffers. A man should live as a man and a woman as a woman.”

C.G. Jung (1875–1961) Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist who founded analytical psychology

Source: "Woman in Europe" (1927), P. 243

Love, Sex, Nature, Suffering

“As a woman, I completely reject Hillary’s brand of bourgeois feminism because it leaves out millions of immigrant women, poor women, and the women under her bombs around the world.”

Abby Martin (1984) American journalist

TeleSUR, April 17, 2016 http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=PV_PLCC6jeI#t=1597

World

“We've done our part. And as I walk off into the city streets, a final word to the men and women of the Reagan revolution, the men and women across America who for eight years did the work that brought America back. My friends: We did it. We weren't just marking time. We made a difference. We made the city stronger. We made the city freer, and we left her in good hands. All in all, not bad, not bad at all. And so, good-bye, God bless you, and God bless the United States of America.”

Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)

1980s, Second term of office (1985–1989), Farewell Address (1989)

Men, God, Time, Parting

“Socially, women are the equals of men, without restrictions. The beings who shine and who bring forth are not made solely to lend or to give the heat of their bodies. It is right that the sum total of work should be shared, reduced and harmonized by their hands. It is just that the fate of humanity should be grounded also in the strength of women.”

Henri Barbusse (1873–1935) French novelist

Light (1919), Ch. XXII - Light

Men, Fate

““In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free.” That’s what President Lincoln once wrote. “Honorable alike in what we give, and what we preserve. We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth.” Mr. Speaker, leaders and members of both parties, distinguished guests: We gather here to commemorate a century and a half of freedom -- not simply for former slaves, but for all of us. Today, the issue of chattel slavery seems so simple, so obvious -- it is wrong in every sense. Stealing men, women, and children from their homelands. Tearing husband from wife, parent from child; stripped and sold to the highest bidder; shackled in chains and bloodied with the whip. It’s antithetical not only to our conception of human rights and dignity, but to our conception of ourselves -- a people founded on the premise that all are created equal.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2015, Commemoration of the 150th Anniversary of the 13th Amendment (December 2015)

Men, Children, People, Hope

“Those who receive this privilege therefore, have a duty to repay the sacrifice which others have made. They are like the man who has been given all the food available in a starving village in order that he might have strength to bring supplies back from a distant place. If he takes this food and does not bring help to his brothers, he is a traitor. Similarly, if any of the young men and women who are given an education by the people of this republic adopt attitudes of superiority, or fail to use their knowledge to help the development of this country, then they are betraying our union.”

Julius Nyerere (1922–1999) Tanzanian politician and writer, first Prime Minister and President of Tanzania

On higher education, 1960s. UDSM Alumni Newletter, volume 7. No. 2, November 2007, ISSN 0856 - 8805

Men, People, Education, Food

“In reaffirming the greatness of our nation, we understand that greatness is never a given. It must be earned. Our journey has never been one of short-cuts or settling for less. It has not been the path for the faint-hearted — for those who prefer leisure over work, or seek only the pleasures of riches and fame. Rather, it has been the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things — some celebrated but more often men and women obscure in their labor, who have carried us up the long, rugged path towards prosperity and freedom. […] Time and again these men and women struggled and sacrificed and worked till their hands were raw so that we might live a better life. They saw America as bigger than the sum of our individual ambitions; greater than all the differences of birth or wealth or faction.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2009, First Inaugural Address (January 2009)

Life, Men, Pleasure, Birth

“I told you in the course of this paper that Shakespeare had a sister; but do not look for her in Sir Sidney Lee's life of the poet. She died young — alas, she never wrote a word… Now my belief is that this poet who never wrote a word and was buried at the cross-roads still lives. She lives in you and in me, and in many other women who are not here to-night, for they are washing up the dishes and putting the children to bed. But she lives; for great poets do not die; they are continuing presences; they need only the opportunity to walk among us in the flesh.”

Virginia Woolf book A Room of One's Own

Source: A Room of One's Own (1929), Ch. 6, p. 117)

Life, Children, Sister, Night

“Women will work out their destinies — much better, too, than men can ever do for them. All the mischief to women has come because men undertook to shape the destiny of women.”

Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902) Indian Hindu monk and phylosopher

Pearls of Wisdom

Men

“The problem with America is that there's too little sex, not too much. The more our instincts are repressed, the more we need sex, pornography and all that. The problem is that feminists have taken over with their attempts to inhibit sex. We have a serious testosterone problem in this country. … It's a mess out there. Men are suspicious of women's intentions. Feminism has crippled them. They don't know when to make a pass. If they do make a pass, they don't know if they're going to end up in court.”

Camille Paglia (1947) American writer

Playboy interview (May 1995)

Men, Sex, Problem, Country

“Men shouldn't have to look and act like big, animalistic beasts to get women. The fact that women still prioritize brute strength just shows that their minds haven't fully evolved.”

Elliot Rodger (1991–2014) American spree killer

As quoted in Nicky Woolf, "'PUAhate' and 'ForeverAlone': inside Elliot Rodger's online life", The Guardian (May 30, 2014)
Bodybuilding.com, PUAhate and ForeverAlone posts

Men

“Women’s Liberation is just a lot of foolishness. It’s the men who are discriminated against. They can’t bear children. And no one’s likely to do anything about that.”

Golda Meir (1898–1978) former prime minister of Israel

As quoted in Newsweek (23 October 1972)

Men, Children

“Now that we're 18 days before the election, Mr. Severely Conservative wants you to think he was severely kidding about everything he said over the last year. He told folks he was the ideal candidate for the Tea Party, now he's telling folks, "What? Who me?" He's forgetting what his own positions are. And he's betting that you will too. I mean, he's changing up so much and backtrackin' and sidesteppin'. We've gotta name this condition that he's going though. I think it's called Romnesia. That's what it's called. I think that's what he's goin' through. Now, I'm not a medical doctor, but I do wanna go over some of the symptoms with you, because I wanna make sure nobody else catches it.You know, if you say you're for equal pay for equal work, but you keep refusing to say whether or not you'd sign a bill that protects equal pay for equal work, you might have Romnesia.If you say women should have access to contraceptive care, but you support legislation that would let your employer deny you contraceptive care, you might have a case of Romnesia.If you say you'll protect a woman's right to choose, but you stand up in a primary debate and say that you'd be delighted to sign a law outlying — outlawing that right to choose in all cases — man, you definitely got Romnesia.Now, this extends to other issues. If you say earlier in the year, "I'm gonna give a tax cut to the top 1%", and in a debate you say, "I don't know anything about giving tax cuts to rich folks", you need to get a thermometer, take your temperature, because you've probably got Romnesia.If you say that you're a champion of the coal industry when, while you were governor, you stood in front of a coal plant and said "This plant will kill you" —[audience: Romnesia! ] that's some Romnesia.And if you come down with a case of Romnesia and you can't seem to remember the policies that are still on your website, or the promises you've made over the six years you've been running for President, here's the good news: Obamacare covers pre-existing conditions. We can fix you up.. We've got a cure. We can make you well, Virginia. This is a curable disease.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

Campaign rally http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/10/19/remarks-president-campaign-event-fairfax-va, George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia, 2012

Disease, Law, Support, Thinking

“It’s certain that fine women eat
A crazy salad with their meat
Whereby the Horn of plenty is undone.”

W.B. Yeats book Michael Robartes and the Dancer

St. 4 Michael Robartes and the Dancer (1921), A Prayer For My Daughter http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1421/

“And every business can take action. All the business leaders who are here and our global economy companies have a responsibility to make sure that their supply chains, stretching into the far corners of the globe, are free of forced labor. […] Every faith community can take action as well, by educating their congregations, by joining in coalitions that are bound by a love of God and a concern for the oppressed. And like that Good Samaritan on the road to Jericho, we can’t just pass by, indifferent. We’ve got to be moved by compassion. We’ve got to bind up the wounds. Let’s come together around a simple truth -- that we are our brother’s keepers and we are our sister’s keepers. And finally, every citizen can take action: by learning more; by going to the website that we helped create -- SlaveryFootprint. org; by speaking up and insisting that the clothes we wear, the food we eat, the products we buy are made free of forced labor; by standing up against the degradation and abuse of women.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2012, Remarks at Clinton Global Initiative (September 2012)

Love, God, Truth, Education

“Modern Feminism has two distinct sides to it: (1) an articulate political and economic side embracing demands for so-called rights; and (2) a sentimental side which insists in an accentuation of the privileges and immunities which have grown up, not articulately or as the result of definite demands, but as the consequence of sentimental pleading in particular cases. In this way, however, a public opinion became established, finding expression in a sex favouritism in the law and even still more in its administration, in favour of women as against men.”

Ernest Belfort Bax (1854–1926) British barrister and journalist

Chapter 1 Historical https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Fraud_of_Feminism/Chapter_1 The Fraud of Feminism (1913)

Men, Law, Sex, Way

“It's a routine thing women go through with cops. They treat women, particularly from the lower classes or those they think of as "loose", in a very humiliating, lecherous manner.”

Flavia Agnes (1947) Indian activist and lawyer

On the attitude of Mumbai policemen towards women, as quoted in " The Law's A Beast http://outlookindia.com/story.aspx?sid=4&aid=227327" Outlook India (9 May 2005)

Thinking

“As children are very prone to be misled, women are similarly very prone to degradation. Therefore, both children and women require protection by the elder members of the family. By being engaged in various religious practices, women will not be misled into adultery. According to Chanakya Pandit, women are generally not very intelligent and therefore not trustworthy. So the different family traditions of religious activities should always engage them, and thus their chastity and devotion will give birth to a good population eligible for participating in the varnasrama system. On the failure of such varnasrama-dharma, naturally the women become free to act and mix with men, and thus adultery is indulged in at the risk of unwanted population. Irresponsible men also provoke adultery in society, and thus unwanted children flood the human race at the risk of war and pestilence.”

A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada (1896–1977) Indian guru

Bhagavad-Gita As It Is, Bhaktivedanta Book Trust, 1972. Chapter 1, verse 40, purport. Vedabase http://www.vedabase.com/en/bg/1/40 Quotes from Books: Loving God, Quotes from Books: Regression of Women's Rights

Men, War, Children, Family

“Among human beings, the subjection of women is much more complete at a certain level of civilization than it is among savages. And the subjection is always reinforced by morality.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

Source: 1930s, Power: A New Social Analysis (1938), Ch. 15: Power and moral codes

“So many women have experienced horrific forms of male violence throughout their lives, and why isn't there a song about how you get depressed because of it? And you don't know what to do, and you don't know how to talk to your friends and how weird it is to be a feminist in that situation, where there's sort of the expectation that you're super-strong superwoman but you're just, like, eating pizza in your house avoiding talking about it.”

Kathleen Hanna (1968) American musician and feminist activist

The original riot grrrl on Katy Perry, '90s revival http://www.cnn.com/2011/SHOWBIZ/Music/06/07/kathleen.hanna.documentary/, CNN (2011).

Strong, Housing

“Recognizing the equality of all men and women, we are willing and able to lift the weak, cradle those who hurt, and nurture the bonds that tie us together as one nation under God.”

Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)

Address accepting the Republican presidential nomination (23 August 1984)
1980s, First term of office (1981–1985)

Men, God, Hurt

“Honest women are inconsolable for the mistakes they haven't made.”

Sacha Guitry (1885–1957) French dramatist and playwright

Book of Humorous Quotations, ed. Connie Robertson (1998), page 83

“I remember, when we were still living in the Soviet Union, Mum would rush by like the wind in our apartment, covered with fur, or even running from one movie scene to the next, because she was a movie star there. Even if it was 40ºF outside, she always wore a miniskirt. For me, she was the most beautiful of all women.”

Milla Jovovich (1975) Ukrainian-born american model and actress

Interview 1

Beauty, Star

“Nothing becomes some women more than the prick of ambition. Love, on the contrary, may make them very dull.”

Françoise Sagan book Dans un mois, dans un an

Dans un mois, dans un an (1957, Those Without Shadows, translated 1957)

Love

“No attempt of any kind must be made at rescuing members of ships sunk, and this includes picking up persons in the water and putting them in lifeboats, righting capsized lifeboats, and handing over food and water. Rescue runs counter to the most primitive demands of warfare for the destruction of enemy ships and crews. Be hard, remember that the enemy has no regard for women and children when he bombs German cities.”

Karl Dönitz (1891–1980) President of Germany; admiral in command of German submarine forces during World War II

Orders issued on September 17, 1942, after an American Airplane bombed a U-boat carrying survivors. Quoted in "The Trial of the Germans" - Page 406 - by Eugene Davidson - History - 1997.

Children, Food, Water, Personality

“When women love, they forgive everything, even our crimes; when they do not love, they cannot forgive anything, not even our virtues.”

Honoré de Balzac (1799–1850) French writer

Lorsque les femmes nous aiment, elles nous pardonnent tout, même nos crimes; lorsqu'elles ne nous aiment pas, elles ne nous pardonnent rien, pas même nos vertus! La Muse du Département http://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/La_Muse_du_d%C3%A9partement_-_II_-_34 (1843), translated by James Waring, part II, ch. XXXIV (part XIII in the translated version).

Love, Forgiveness

“I was raised to be very independent. I was raised to believe I could do anything I wanted with my life. My father said I was lucky to be born a woman because "women can do anything they want" with their lives. Of course, I didn't realize until later that my father was giving me a slightly unrealistic view, but I think that [it] gave me a lot of confidence.”

Michelle Phillips (1944) Singer, actress

On her upbringing, The Arsenio Hall Show (1991)

Life, Confidence, Thinking

“They are more than men at the outset of their battles; at the end they are less than the women.”

Livy (-59–17 BC) Roman historian

Book X, sec. 28
History of Rome

Men

Quotes about women page 5

Quotes about women
page 5