“And as every one of their dear sex is the rival of the rest of her kind, timidity passes for folly in their charitable judgements; and gentleness for dullness; and silence -- which is but timid denial of the unwelcome assertion of ruling folks, and tacit protestantism -- above all, finds no mercy at the hands of the female Inquisition.”
The narrator, LXII
Vanity Fair (1847–1848)
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William Makepeace Thackeray 69
novelist 1811–1863Related quotes
Source: The Prince (1513), Ch. 25 (as translated by RM Adams)
Context: I conclude, then, that so long as Fortune varies and men stand still, they will prosper while they suit the times, and fail when they do not. But I do feel this: that it is better to be rash than timid, for Fortune is a woman, and the man who wants to hold her down must beat and bully her. We see that she yields more often to men of this stripe than to those who come coldly toward her.
1780s, Letter to Peter Carr (1787)
Exsurge Domine (1520)
Context: With the advice and consent of these our venerable brothers, with mature deliberation on each and every one of the above theses, and by the authority of almighty God, the blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, and our own authority, we condemn, reprobate, and reject completely each of these theses or errors as either heretical, scandalous, false, offensive to pious ears or seductive of simple minds, and against Catholic truth. By listing them, we decree and declare that all the faithful of both sexes must regard them as condemned, reprobated, and rejected…. We restrain all in the virtue of holy obedience and under the penalty of an automatic major excommunication....
Moreover, because the preceding errors and many others are contained in the books or writings of Martin Luther, we likewise condemn, reprobate, and reject completely the books and all the writings and sermons of the said Martin, whether in Latin or any other language, containing the said errors or any one of them; and we wish them to be regarded as utterly condemned, reprobated, and rejected. We forbid each and every one of the faithful of either sex, in virtue of holy obedience and under the above penalties to be incurred automatically, to read, assert, preach, praise, print, publish, or defend them. They will incur these penalties if they presume to uphold them in any way, personally or through another or others, directly or indirectly, tacitly or explicitly, publicly or occultly, either in their own homes or in other public or private places.
“We hand folks over to God's mercy, and show none ourselves.”
Adam Bede (1859)
Source: SCUM MANIFESTO (1967), p. 12 (hyphens (not en- or em-dashes) so in original; line break across "highly-"/"sexed").
"The White Goddess," lines 1–6, from Poems and Satires (1951).
Poems
Thiis was published without credit in The Best Loved Poems of the American People (1936) with the title "Friendship", and since that time has sometimes been misattributed http://www.geonius.com/eliot/quotes.html to Eliot; it is actually an adaptation of lines by Dinah Craik, in A Life for a Life (1859):
Misattributed
Context: Oh, the comfort —
the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person —
having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words,
but pouring them all right out,
just as they are,
chaff and grain together;
certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them,
keep what is worth keeping,
and then with the breath of kindness blow the rest away.