Quotes about women
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John Lennon photo

“I am tryin’ to say it to Yoko, but to all women, you know? On behalf of all men, in a way. If that’s taken it too much on meself, I feel that artists are that – they’re reflections of society… Mirrors.”

John Lennon (1940–1980) English singer and songwriter

Last interview (1980)
Context: I’m 40, I wanna talk to the people my age. I’m happy if the young people like it, and I’m happy if the old people like it, I’m talkin’ to guys and gals that have been through what we went through, together — the sixties group that has survived. Survived the war, the drugs, the politics, the violence on the street – the whole she-bang – that we’ve survived it and we’re here. And I’m talkin’ to them. And the "Woman" song is to Yoko, but it’s to all women. And, because my role in society – or any artist or poet’s role – is to try to express what we all feel. Not to tell people how to feel, not as a preacher, not as a leader, but as a reflection of us all. And it’s like that’s the job of the artist in society, not to... they’re not some alienated being living on the outskirts of town. It’s fine to live on the outskirts of town, but artists must reflect what we all are. That’s what it’s about – artists, or poets or whatever you wanna call it. And that’s what I’m tryin’ to express on behalf of all the men to all the women, through my own feelings about women – when it dawned on me, "God! It is the other half of the sky" as the late-great Chairman MacDougal said, right? I mean, they are the other half of the sky, and without them there is nothing. And without us there’s nothing. There’s only the two together creating children, creating society. So what’s all this B. S. about, you know, "women are this" and "men are that" – we’re all human, man. We’re all human. And, I am tryin’ to say it to Yoko, but to all women, you know? On behalf of all men, in a way. If that’s taken it too much on meself, I feel that artists are that – they’re reflections of society... Mirrors.

José Saramago photo

“Besides the conversation of women, it is dreams that keep the world in orbit.”

Source: Baltasar and Blimunda (1982), p. 107
Context: Besides the conversation of women, it is dreams that keep the world in orbit. But dreams also form a diadem of moons, therefore the sky is that splendour inside a man's head, if his head is not, in fact, his own unique sky.

Chauncey Depew photo
Zakir Naik photo
Emma Watson photo

“It just always reveals to me how many misconceptions and what a misunderstanding there is about what feminism is. Feminism is about giving women choice. Feminism is not a stick with which to beat other women with. It’s about freedom, it’s about liberation, it’s about equality. I really don’t know what my tits have to do with it. It’s very confusing.”

Emma Watson (1990) British actress and model

"Actress Emma Watson says revealing photo does not undermine feminism" http://www.reuters.com/article/us-people-emmawatson-idUSKBN16C0QV, Reuters, in response to critics of her photos in Vogue magazine (March 5, 2017)

Jessica Alba photo
Helena Roerich photo

“To all these insanities will be added the most shameful—the intensified competition between male and female. We insist upon equal and full rights for women, but the servants of darkness will expel them from many fields of activity, even where they bring the most benefit. We have spoken about the many maladies in the world, but the renewed struggle between the male and female principles will be the most tragic. It is hard to imagine how disastrous this will be, for it is a struggle against evolution itself! What a high price humanity pays for every such opposition to evolution! In these convulsions the young generations are corrupted. Plato spoke about beautiful thinking, but what kind of beauty is possible when there is hostility between man and woman? Now is the time to think about equal and full rights, but darkness invades the tensed realms. However, all the dark attacks will serve a certain good purpose, for those who have been humiliated in Kali Yuga will be glorified in Satya Yuga. ...Let us remember that these years of Armageddon are the most intense, and one’s health should be especially guarded because the cosmic currents will increase many diseases. You must understand that this time is unique... It is near-sighted to think that if war is prevented all problems will be solved! There are those who think so and imagine that they can cheat evolution, not realizing that the worst war is in their own homes. However, there do exist places on Earth where evolution develops normally, and We are always there.”

Helena Roerich (1879–1955) Russian philosopher

286
Armageddon

Elie Wiesel photo
Barack Obama photo
Barack Obama photo
Barack Obama photo
John Chrysostom photo
Barack Obama photo
Barack Obama photo

“Whenever I travel the world, from Europe to Africa, South America to Southeast Asia, one of the things I most enjoy doing is meeting young men and women like you.”

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

It’s more fun than being in a conference room. And it’s also more important -- because you are the young leaders who will determine the future of this country and this region. So I’m going to keep my remarks short at the top, because I want to take as many questions and comments from you.
2014, Young Southeast Asian Leaders Initiative Town Hall Speech (November 2014)

Jawaharlal Nehru photo
Indíra Gándhí photo
Meera Bai photo

“The saint Mirabai is the most famous of the women saints of India and can be ranked among the foremost of the mystics of the world.”

Meera Bai Hindu mystic poet

Swami Yatishwaranandji in “Others on Mirabai”

Tipu Sultan photo

“In the whole of the territories of the Balaghat (i. e., in the country below the ghats) most of the Hindu women go about with their breasts and heads uncovered. This is animal-like. No one of these women should hereafter go out without a fuller robe and a veil.”

Tipu Sultan (1750–1799) Ruler of the Sultanate of Mysore

Circular of Tipu Sultan to local administrators, quoted by K.N.V. Sastri, in his essay Moral Laws under Tipu Sultan https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.100038/page/n292, in The Proceedings Of The Indian History Congress 6th Session, 1943
From Tipu Sultan's Decrees

Gerda Lerner photo
Basava photo

“Basava (twelfth century AD), a Saivite saint of South India was a religious teacher, social reformer, and revolutionary who opposed image worship, rejected the Vedas, and the authority of the priests and instituted complete equality among his followers, even equality for women. He was the founder of the Lingayat sect.”

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

Indira Gandhi, the former Prime Minister of India, quoted in [Gandhi, Indira, Selected Thoughts of Indira Gandhi: A Book of Quotes, http://books.google.com/books?id=vJbcODokoHsC&pg=PA35, 1985, Mittal Publications, 35–, GGKEY:A2GGQ58B3WF, 35]

Sean Penn photo
Augustine Birrell photo

“Words are women, deeds are men.”

Augustine Birrell (1850–1933) British politician

"In the Name of the Bodleian"
In the Name of the Bodleian, and Other Essays

Aisha photo
Thomas Paine photo
Albert Einstein photo

“The myth of childhood has an even greater parallel in the myth of Femininity. Both women and children were considered asexual and thus"purer" than man. Their inferior status was ill-concealed under an elaborate "respect."”

One didn't discuss serious matters nor did one curse in from of women and children; one didn't openly degrade them, one did it behind their backs.

Chapter Four
The Dialectic of Sex (1970)

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry photo
Dua Lipa photo

“The music industry as a whole just needs more women. There are a lot of men at the top of the ranks.”

Dua Lipa (1995) English singer and songwriter

Dua Lipa Believes the Future of Music Is Female, Glamour, 2017-07-17 https://www.glamour.com/story/dua-lipa-believes-the-future-of-music-is-female,

Tupac Shakur photo
William Shakespeare photo
Alex Morgan photo

“To force a change sometimes you need to stand up. You know what you’re worth – rather than what your employer is paying you. We’re not scared. To move the women’s game ahead we need to do what’s necessary. I feel other national teams are looking at us for that guidance.”

Alex Morgan (1989) American soccer player

"Alex Morgan: ‘If Fifa start respecting the women’s game more, others will follow’" https://www.theguardian.com/football/2017/jan/16/alex-morgan-us-soccer-football-fifa-lyon-women-equality (Janaury 17, 2017)

Michael Douglas photo
Abraham Lincoln photo
Emmeline Pankhurst photo
Cleopatra VII photo
Charles Spurgeon photo

“Women are best when they are quiet.”

Charles Spurgeon (1834–1892) British preacher, author, pastor and evangelist

First Healing, and Then Service, Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit series, Volume 31, Sermon number 1,836 (April 19th, 1885)

Robert Jordan photo
Zadie Smith photo
Pat Conroy photo
Rebecca Solnit photo
Philippa Gregory photo

“Women have always been spies.”

Harriet Rubin (1952) American writer

Source: The Princessa: Machiavelli For Women

Euripidés photo
Erica Jong photo

“Women are their own worst enemies. And guilt is the main weapon of self-torture…Show me a woman who doesn’t feel guilty and I’ll show you a man.”

Variant: Women are their own worst enemies. And guilt is the main weapon of self-torture... Show me a woman who doesn't feel guilty and I'll show you a man.
Source: Fear of Flying

Joss Whedon photo

“It's about women. It's about power and it's about women and you just hate those two words in the same sentence, don't you?”

Joss Whedon (1964) American director, writer, and producer for television and film

Source: Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Long Way Home

Eric Jerome Dickey photo

“We women aren't good at hints. We like solid declarations of love and forever.”

Jude Deveraux (1947) American writer

Source: True Love

Margaret Atwood photo

“A man is just a woman’s strategy for making other women.”

Margaret Atwood (1939) Canadian writer

Source: The Handmaid’s Tale (1985), Chapter 20 (p. 121)

“Why do I write? I write because I have to, because it is all I know, because it is my truth, because I am compelled, because I am driven to make the world
acknowledge that women like me exist, and we possess a dangerous wisdom.”

Patrick Califia-Rice (1954) American writer

Variant: Why do I write? I write because I have to, because it is all I know, because it is my truth, because I am compelled, because I am driven to make the world acknowledge that women like me exist, and we possess a dangerous wisdom.

Richelle Mead photo
Alexander McCall Smith photo
Nelson DeMille photo
Ogden Nash photo

“Just think of all those women on the Titanic who said, 'No thank you' to desert that night. And for what?!”

Erma Bombeck (1927–1996) When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent le…
Charles Bukowski photo
Robert A. Heinlein photo
Elizabeth Kostova photo

“Recently abandoned women can be complicated.”

Source: The Historian

Roald Dahl photo
Walt Whitman photo

“In the faces of men and women I see God.”

Walt Whitman (1819–1892) American poet, essayist and journalist

Song of Myself, 48
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Cassandra Clare photo
Chris Rock photo

“Men lie the most,

women tell the biggest lies.”

Chris Rock (1965) American comedian, actor, screenwriter, television producer, film producer, and director
Anaïs Nin photo
Dorothy Parker photo

“Women and elephants never forget.”

Dorothy Parker (1893–1967) American poet, short story writer, critic and satirist
Betty Friedan photo
Anna Quindlen photo
Jean Paul Sartre photo

“If I became a philosopher, if I have so keenly sought this fame for which I'm still waiting, it's all been to seduce women basically.”

Jean Paul Sartre (1905–1980) French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and …
Jane Austen photo

“I hate to hear you talk about all women as if they were fine ladies instead of rational creatures. None of us want to be in calm waters all our lives.”

Variant: But I hate to hear you talking so like a fine gentleman, and as if women were all fine ladies, instead of rational creatures. We none of us expect to be in smooth water all our days.
Source: Persuasion

Audre Lorde photo
Haruki Murakami photo

“Many are the women who can take their clothes off seductively, but women who can charm as they dress?”

Source: Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World (1985), Chapter Nine: Appetite, Disappointment, Leningrad

Gillian Flynn photo
Brené Brown photo

“Even to me the issue of "stay small, sweet, quiet, and modest" sounds like an outdated problem, but the truth is that women still run into those demands whenever we find and use our voices.”

Brené Brown (1965) US writer and professor

Source: Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead

Alison Goodman photo

“Men were always quick to believe in the madness of women.”

Alison Goodman (1966) Australian science-fiction writer

Source: Eona: The Last Dragoneye

Charlaine Harris photo
Harper Lee photo
Christopher Moore photo
D.H. Lawrence photo
Bette Davis photo