Quotes for women

„Men are taught to apologize for their weaknesses, women for their strengths.“

—  Lois Wyse American advertising executive 1926 - 2007

„A girl should be two things: classy and fabulous.“

—  Coco Chanel French fashion designer 1883 - 1971

As quoted in The Gospel According to Coco Chanel : Life Lessons from the World's Most Elegant Woman (2009) by Karen Karbo

„I am too intelligent, too demanding, and too resourceful for anyone to be able to take charge of me entirely. No one knows me or loves me completely. I have only myself“

—  Simone de Beauvoir French writer, intellectual, existentialist philosopher, political activist, feminist, and social theorist 1908 - 1986

„If you don’t like the road you’re walking, start paving another one.“

—  Dolly Parton American singer-songwriter and actress 1946

„You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face.“

—  Eleanor Roosevelt American politician, diplomat, and activist, and First Lady of the United States 1884 - 1962

Source: You Learn by Living (1960), p. 29–30
Context: You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, "I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along." … You must do the thing you think you cannot do.

„They are the affectation of affectation.“

—  Henry Fielding, book Joseph Andrews

Book III, Ch. 3
Joseph Andrews (1742)

„I, with a deeper instinct, choose a man who compels my strength, who makes enormous demands on me, who does not doubt my courage or my toughness, who does not believe me naïve or innocent, who has the courage to treat me like a woman.“

—  Anaïs Nin writer of novels, short stories, and erotica 1903 - 1977

„Why are women… so much more interesting to men than men are to women?“

—  Virginia Woolf English writer 1882 - 1941

„Any fool knows men and women think differently at times, but the biggest difference is this. Men forget, but never forgive; women forgive, but never forget.“

—  Robert Jordan American writer 1948 - 2007

Thom Merrilin
(15 October 1991)

„Above all, be the heroine of your life, not the victim.“

—  Nora Ephron Film director, author screenwriter 1941 - 2012

Variant: Above all, be the heroine of your own life, not the victim.

„Just don’t give up trying to do what you really want to do. Where there is love and inspiration, I don’t think you can go wrong.“

—  Ella Fitzgerald American jazz singer 1917 - 1996

„There is no solution because there is no problem.“

—  Marcel Duchamp French painter and sculptor 1887 - 1968

„What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.“

—  Jane Goodall British primatologist, ethologist, and anthropologist 1934

„I am a Woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal Woman,
that's me.“

—  Maya Angelou American author and poet 1928 - 2014

„Lock up your libraries if you like; but there is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind.“

—  Virginia Woolf, book A Room of One's Own

Variant: There is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind.
Source: A Room of One's Own (1929), Ch. 4, p. 90

„Responsibility to yourself means refusing to let others do your thinking, talking, and naming for you; it means learning to respect and use your own brains and instincts; hence, grappling with hard work.“

—  Adrienne Rich American poet, essayist and feminist 1929 - 2012

„In politics, if you want anything said, ask a man; if you want anything done, ask a woman.“

—  Margaret Thatcher British stateswoman and politician 1925 - 2013

Speech to members of the National Union of Townswomen’s Guilds, delivered at the Royal Albert Hall (May 20, 1965) ; as quoted in Why Women Should Rule the World, HarperCollins (2008), Dee Dee Myers, p. 227 : ISBN 0061140406, 9780061140402 . The Margaret Thatcher Foundation http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/101374 gives the following additional information : MT spoke on the theme ‘Woman – No Longer a Satellite.’ The Evening News report of this speech is the origin of a phrase often attributed to her : ‘In politics, ... (etc., as above).’
Backbench MP

„I am not what happened to me, I am what I choose to become.“

—  C.G. Jung Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist who founded analytical psychology 1875 - 1961

Variant: I am not what happens to me. I choose who I become.

„Where there is a woman there is magic.“

—  Ntozake Shange Contemporary African American writer and performance artist 1948 - 2018