Quotes about lady
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Whoopi Goldberg photo

“Well, when I was nine years old, Star Trek came on, I looked at it and I went screaming through the house. 'Come here, mum, everybody, come quick, come quick, there's a black lady on television and she ain't no maid!”

Whoopi Goldberg (1955) American actress

Whoopie Goldberg "“When I was 9 years old, Star Trek came on…” ~ Whoopi Goldberg" http://www.elephantjournal.com/2014/03/when-i-was-9-years-old-star-trek-came-on-whoopi-goldberg/ March 8, 2014.

Al-Maʿarri photo

“A lady is a woman who makes a man behave like a gentleman.”

Russell Lynes (1910–1991) American art historian

"The Part-Time Lady," http://books.google.com/books?id=0qhKAAAAMAAJ&q=%22A+lady+is+a+woman+who+makes+a+man+behave+like+a+gentleman%22&pg=PA104#v=onepage A Surfeit of Honey (1957)

Glen Cook photo
Honoré de Balzac photo

“Between the daylight gambler and the player at night there is the same difference that lies between a careless husband and the lover swooning under his lady’s window.”

Honoré de Balzac (1799–1850) French writer

Entre le joueur du matin et le joueur du soir il existe la différence qui distingue le mari nonchalant de l'amant pâmé sous les fenêtres de sa belle.
The Wild Ass’s Skin (1831), Part I: The Talisman

Kurt Vonnegut photo
Aleksandr Pushkin photo
Arnold Schwarzenegger photo
Cassandra Clare photo
Bertrand Russell photo

“When, in youth, I learned what was called "philosophy" … no one ever mentioned to me the question of "meaning." Later, I became acquainted with Lady Welby's work on the subject, but failed to take it seriously. I imagined that logic could be pursued by taking it for granted that symbols were always, so to speak, transparent, and in no way distorted the objects they were supposed to "mean." Purely logical problems have gradually led me further and further from this point of view. Beginning with the question whether the class of all those classes which are not members of themselves is, or is not, a member of itself; continuing with the problem whether the man who says "I am lying" is lying or speaking the truth; passing through the riddle "is the present King of France bald or not bald, or is the law of excluded middle false?" I have now come to believe that the order of words in time or space is an ineradicable part of much of their significance – in fact, that the reason they can express space-time occurrences is that they are space-time occurrences, so that a logic independent of the accidental nature of spacetime becomes an idle dream. These conclusions are unpleasant to my vanity, but pleasant to my love of philosophical activity: until vitality fails, there is no reason to be wedded to one's past theories.”

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

Source: 1920s, Review of The Meaning of Meaning (1926), p. 114

Nathan Bedford Forrest photo
Andrew Taylor Still photo
Claudette Colvin photo

“It's my constitutional right to sit here as much as that lady. I paid my fare, it's my constitutional right.”

Claudette Colvin (1939) African-American civil rights movement leader

Claudette Colvin http://www.biography.com/people/claudette-colvin-11378 at biography.com, accessed 2 Nov 2013; Colvin said as she was getting arrested by the two police officers on the bus.

Pim Fortuyn photo

“I will not change my opinion, dear people, it is 5 minutes before twelve. Not just here in Holland. but in the whole of Europe. And is that what you want? I take my stand for this country, that which has been build up in the last five or six centuries. Damn it, we have a fifth column… Okay, let me tell you now straight the way it is! A fifth column of people who want to destroy this country! I will not go for that, and I say, "you can stay here, but you must adapt." I must hear "Allah is great", that I am a "dirty pig"… you are a "Christian dog". That is what they say, and you think that is okay… And I have so far been very reserved. I have never repeated that… but you accept being walked over, and I will not let that happen anymore. And that's where I get all those seats from (in the polls). Because this country is fed up! … C'est ça! That is what I stand for. And if I must express that otherwise, well, fine… but it is about your children, your grandchildren. For what else is this about? Must I explain more here? I can not do it any other way, and will not do it any other way. Then I would rather be finished off. Okay, fine… but the problem sir, will remain. That will remain. People have had more than enough of it. Damn it, in my city, Moroccan boys, Turkish boys… who do not rob the Turks, the Moroccans, but rob you and me and little old ladies. And the police? What they do? Damn it… nothing. They tell you: "If you say that, you discriminate". And that is what I express from the Dutch people. And I stand for it, I stand for it. Is that not allowed? Okay, I respect that. C'est ça”

Pim Fortuyn (1948–2002) Dutch politician

That’s all
Nederland 2 documentary "The Night of Fortuyn" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgM9JozWOf0

Pope Francis photo
Henry Dunant photo
Jerome David Salinger photo

“There isn't anyone anywhere that isn't Seymour's Fat Lady. Don't you know that? Don't you know that goddam secret yet? And don't you know — listen to me, now — don't you know who that Fat Lady really is? . . . Ah, buddy. Ah, buddy. It's Christ Himself. Christ Himself, buddy.”

Franny and Zooey (1961), Zooey (1957)
Context: I don't care where an actor acts. It can be in summer stock, it can be over a radio, it can be over television, it can be in a goddam Broadway theatre, complete with the most fashionable, most well-fed, most sunburned-looking audience you can imagine. But I'll tell you a terrible secret — Are you listening to me? There isn't anyone out there who isn't Seymour's Fat Lady. That includes your Professor Tupper, buddy. And all his goddam cousins by the dozens. There isn't anyone anywhere that isn't Seymour's Fat Lady. Don't you know that? Don't you know that goddam secret yet? And don't you know — listen to me, now — don't you know who that Fat Lady really is?... Ah, buddy. Ah, buddy. It's Christ Himself. Christ Himself, buddy.

Jerome David Salinger photo

“He said to shine them anyway. He said to shine them for the Fat Lady.”

Franny and Zooey (1961), Zooey (1957)
Context: Seymour'd told me to shine my shoes just as I was going out the door with Waker. I was furious. The studio audience were all morons, the announcer was a moron, the sponsors were morons, and I just damn well wasn't going to shine my shoes for them, I told Seymour. I said they couldn't see them anyway, where we sat. He said to shine them anyway. He said to shine them for the Fat Lady. I didn't know what the hell he was talking about, but he had a very Seymour look on his face, and so I did it. He never did tell me who the Fat Lady was, but I shined my shoes for the Fat Lady every time I ever went on the air again — all the years you and I were on the program together, if you remember. I don't think I missed more than just a couple of times. This terribly clear, clear picture of the Fat Lady formed in my mind. I had her sitting on this porch all day, swatting flies, with her radio going full-blast from morning till night. I figured the heat was terrible, and she probably had cancer, and — I don't know. Anyway, it seemed goddam clear why Seymour wanted me to shine my shoes when I went on the air. It made sense.

Jerome David Salinger photo

“I'll tell you a terrible secret — Are you listening to me? There isn't anyone out there who isn't Seymour's Fat Lady.”

Franny and Zooey (1961), Zooey (1957)
Context: I don't care where an actor acts. It can be in summer stock, it can be over a radio, it can be over television, it can be in a goddam Broadway theatre, complete with the most fashionable, most well-fed, most sunburned-looking audience you can imagine. But I'll tell you a terrible secret — Are you listening to me? There isn't anyone out there who isn't Seymour's Fat Lady. That includes your Professor Tupper, buddy. And all his goddam cousins by the dozens. There isn't anyone anywhere that isn't Seymour's Fat Lady. Don't you know that? Don't you know that goddam secret yet? And don't you know — listen to me, now — don't you know who that Fat Lady really is?... Ah, buddy. Ah, buddy. It's Christ Himself. Christ Himself, buddy.

Vladimir Nabokov photo

“An old Russian lady who has for some obscure reason begged me not to divulge her name, happened to show me in Paris the diary she had kept in the past. …. I cannot see any real necessity of complying with her anonymity.”

Source: The Real Life of Sebastian Knight (1941), p. 5.
Context: An old Russian lady who has for some obscure reason begged me not to divulge her name, happened to show me in Paris the diary she had kept in the past..... I cannot see any real necessity of complying with her anonymity. That she will ever read this book seems wildly improbable. Her name was and is Olga Olegovna Orlova — an egg-like alliteration which it would have been a pity to whithold.
Her dry account cannot convey to the untravelled reader the implied delights of a winter day such as she describes in St. Petersburg; the pure luxury of a cloudless sky designed not to warm the flesh, but solely to please the eye; the sheen of sledge-cuts on the hard-beaten snow of spacious streets with a tawny tinge about the middle tracks due to a rich mixture of horse-dung; the brightly coloured bunch of toy-balloons hawked by an aproned pedlar; the soft curve of a cupola, its gold dimmed by the bloom of powdery frost; the birch trees in the public gardens, every tiniest twig outlined white; the rasp and twinkle of winter traffic… and by the way how queer it is when you look at an old picture postcard (like the one I have placed on my desk to keep the child of memory amused for the moment) to consider the haphazard way Russian cabs had of turning whenever they liked, anywhere and anyhow, so that instead of the straight, self-conscious stream of modern traffic one sees — on this painted photograph — a dream-wide street with droshkies all awry under incredibly blue skies, which farther away, melt automatically into a pink flush of mnemonic banality.

Francis of Assisi photo

“Hail, queen wisdom! May the Lord save thee with thy sister holy pure simplicity!
O Lady, holy poverty, may the Lord save thee with thy sister holy humility!
O Lady, holy charity, may the Lord save thee with thy sister holy obedience!”

Francis of Assisi (1182–1226) Catholic saint and founder of the Franciscan Order

Salutation of the Virtues
Context: Hail, queen wisdom! May the Lord save thee with thy sister holy pure simplicity!
O Lady, holy poverty, may the Lord save thee with thy sister holy humility!
O Lady, holy charity, may the Lord save thee with thy sister holy obedience!
O all ye most holy virtues, may the Lord, from whom you proceed and come, save you!
There is absolutely no man in the whole world who can possess one among you unless he first die.
He who possesses one and does not offend the others, possesses all; and he who offends one, possesses none and offends all; and every one [of them] confounds vices and sins.
Holy wisdom confounds Satan and all his wickednesses.
Pure holy simplicity confounds all the wisdom of this world and the wisdom of the flesh.
Holy poverty confounds cupidity and avarice and the cares of this world.
Holy humility confounds pride and all the men of this world and all things that are in the world.
Holy charity confounds all diabolical and fleshly temptations and all fleshly fears.
Holy obedience confounds all bodily and fleshly desires and keeps the body mortified to the obedience of the spirit and to the obedience of one's brother and makes a man subject to all the men of this world and not to men alone, but also to all beasts and wild animals, so that they may do with him whatsoever they will, in so far as it may be granted to them from above by the Lord.

Nancy Reagan photo

“While I loved being first lady, my eight years with that title were the most difficult years of my life.”

Foreword
My Turn (1989)
Context: In 1981, when Ronnie and I moved to Washington, I never dreamed that our eight years there would be a time of so much emotion. But life in the White House is magnified: The highs were higher than I expected, and the lows were much lower.
While I loved being first lady, my eight years with that title were the most difficult years of my life. Both of my parents died while Ronnie was president, and my husband and I were both operated on for cancer. Before we had even settled in, Ronnie was shot and almost killed. Then there was the pressure of living under the intense scrutiny of the media, and the frustration of frequently being misunderstood. Everything I did or said seemed to generate controversy, and it often seemed that you couldn’t open a newspaper without seeing a story about me — my husband and me, my children and me, Donald Regan and me, and so on.
I don’t think I was as bad, or as extreme in my power or my weakness, as I was depicted — especially during the first year, when people thought I was overly concerned with trivialities, and the final year, when some of the same people were convinced I was running the show.
In many ways, I think I served as a lightning rod; and in any case, I came to realize that while Ronald Reagan was an extremely popular president, some people didn’t like his wife very much. Something about me, or the image people had of me, just seemed to rub them the wrong way.

W.B. Yeats photo

“All the wild witches, those most noble ladies,
For all their broom-sticks and their tears,
Their angry tears, are gone.”

W.B. Yeats (1865–1939) Irish poet and playwright

Lines Written In Dejection http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1524/, st. 1
The Wild Swans at Coole (1919)
Context: When have I last looked on
The round green eyes and the long wavering bodies
Of the dark leopards of the moon?
All the wild witches, those most noble ladies,
For all their broom-sticks and their tears,
Their angry tears, are gone.

Miguel de Cervantes photo

“I was ever charitable and good to the poor, and scorn to take the bread out of another man's mouth. On the other side, by our Lady, they shall play me no foul play. I am an old cur at a crust, and can sleep dog-sleep when I list.”

Miguel de Cervantes (1547–1616) Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright

Source: Don Quixote de la Mancha (1605–1615), Part II (1615), Book III, Ch. 33, as translated by Pierre Antoine Motteux in The History of the Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha (1701)
Variant translations:
I'm kind-hearted by nature, and full of compassion for the poor; there's no stealing the loaf from him who kneads and bakes; and by my faith it won't do to throw false dice with me; I am an old dog, and I know all about 'tus, tus;' I can be wide-awake if need be, and I don't let clouds come before my eyes, for I know where the shoe pinches me; I say so, because with me the good will have support and protection, and the bad neither footing nor access. And it seems to me that, in governments, to make a beginning is everything; and maybe, after having been governor a fortnight, I'll take kindly to the work and know more about it than the field labour I have been brought up to.
Honesty's the best policy.
Context: I was ever charitable and good to the poor, and scorn to take the bread out of another man's mouth. On the other side, by our Lady, they shall play me no foul play. I am an old cur at a crust, and can sleep dog-sleep when I list. I can look sharp as well as another, and let me alone to keep the cobwebs out of my eyes. I know where the shoe wrings me. I will know who and who is together. Honesty is the best policy, I will stick to that. The good shall have my hand and heart, but the bad neither foot nor fellowship. And in my mind, the main point of governing, is to make a good beginning.

Virginia Woolf photo
Kurt Vonnegut photo

“Ladies and gentlemen of the class of ’97: Wear sunscreen.”

Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007) American writer

Opening words to a commencement address supposedly given by Vonnegut at M.I.T., but actually based on Mary Schmich's June 1, 1997 column for the Chicago Tribune
Misattributed

George Washington photo

“Tis true, I profess myself a Votary to Love — I acknowledge that a Lady is in the Case — and further I confess, that this Lady is known to you. — Yes Madam, as well as she is to one, who is too sensible of her Charms to deny the Power, whose Influence he feels and must ever Submit to. I feel the force of her amiable beauties in the recollection of a thousand tender passages that I coud wish to obliterate, till I am bid to revive them. — but experience alas! sadly reminds me how Impossible this is. — and evinces an Opinion which I have long entertaind, that there is a Destiny, which has the Sovereign controul of our Actions — not to be resisted by the strongest efforts of Human Nature.
You have drawn me my dear Madam, or rather have I drawn myself, into an honest confession of a Simple Fact — misconstrue not my meaning — ’tis obvious — doubt it not, nor expose it, — the World has no business to know the object of my Love, declard in this manner to — you when I want to conceal it — One thing, above all things in this World I wish to know, and only one person of your Acquaintance can solve me that, or guess my meaning.”

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

but adieu to this, till happier times, if I ever shall see them.

Letter to https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/02-06-02-0013#GEWN-02-06-02-0013-fn-0002 Mrs. George William Fairfax (Sally Cary Fairfax) (12 September 1758)
1750s

Marcin Malek photo
Rick Riordan photo

“Look, lady, we're not going to go all HUNGER GAMES on each other. Isn't going to happen.”

Variant: He forced his fists to unclench. "Look, lady, we're not going to go all Hunger Games on each other. Isn't going to happen.
Source: The Blood of Olympus

Susanna Clarke photo
Thomas Malory photo

“The very purpose of a knight is to fight on behalf of a lady.”

Thomas Malory (1405–1471) English writer, author of ''Le Morte d'Arthur''
Lynda Barry photo

“You may be a lady but you are still the man!”

Lynda Barry (1956) Cartoonist

Source: The Lynda Barry Experience

Susan Elizabeth Phillips photo

“Now, now. Southern ladies don’t French-kiss and tell.”

Susan Elizabeth Phillips (1948) American writer

Source: Ain't She Sweet

Anne Sexton photo
Suzanne Collins photo

“Ladies and gentlemen, let the Seventy-fourth Hunger Games begin!”

Claudius Templesmith, p. 147
The Hunger Games trilogy, The Hunger Games (2008)
Source: Mockingjay

Margaret George photo

“The cure for a broken heart is simple, my lady. A hot bath and a good night's sleep.”

Margaret George (1943) American writer

Source: Mary Queen of Scotland and The Isles

Patrick Rothfuss photo
Thomas Hardy photo
Richelle Mead photo

“My wife, ladies and gentlemen. Beauty, brains, and now brawn.”

Richelle Mead (1976) American writer

Source: The Ruby Circle

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

Kerry Greenwood photo

“I'm concealing a lot of things. That's what a lady does.”

Kerry Greenwood (1954) Australian crime writer

Source: Queen of the Flowers

Julia Quinn photo

“Men are sheep. Where one goes, the rest will soon follow.

-Lady Whistledown”

Julia Quinn (1970) American novelist

Source: The Duke and I

Walter Dean Myers photo
Elizabeth Hoyt photo

“There are no heroes on the battlefield, my lady; there are only survivors.”

Elizabeth Hoyt (1970) American writer

Source: To Taste Temptation

“I'll fight dragons, just like any knight for his lady. I'll prove myself. You'll be proud of me.”

L.J. Smith (1965) American author

Variant: And in the mean time I'll fight dragons, just like any knight for his lady.
Source: Night World, No. 1

Abigail Adams photo

“If particular care and attention is not paid to the ladies, we are determined to foment a rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any laws in which we have no voice or representation.”

Abigail Adams (1744–1818) 2nd First Lady of the United States (1797–1801)

Source: The Letters of John and Abigail Adams

Eoin Colfer photo
Steven Wright photo
Anne Lamott photo

“I liked those ladies! They were helpers, and they danced.' These are the words I want on my gravestone: that I was a helper, and that I danced.”

Anne Lamott (1954) Novelist, essayist, memoirist, activist

Source: Grace (Eventually): Thoughts on Faith

Holly Black photo

“The Lady or The Tiger,'

'My lady, the tiger”

Source: The Coldest Girl in Coldtown

Darren Shan photo
Jane Austen photo
Rick Riordan photo
Thomas Hardy photo

“Ladies know what to guard against, because they read novels that tell them of these tricks…”

Thomas Hardy (1840–1928) English novelist and poet

Source: Tess of the D'Urbervilles

Rachel Caine photo
Jane Austen photo
Deb Caletti photo
Alexander McCall Smith photo
Shannon Hale photo
Rick Riordan photo
Jane Austen photo

“But when a young lady is to be a heroine, the perverseness of forty surrounding families cannot prevent her. Something must and will happen to throw a hero in her way.”

Jane Austen (1775–1817) English novelist

Source: Northanger Abbey: a play in two acts, based upon the novel

Cassandra Clare photo
Winston S. Churchill photo

“Lady Nancy Astor: If I were your wife I'd put poison in your coffee.
Churchill: If I were your husband I'd drink it.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Dates to 1899, American humor origin, originally featuring a woman upset by a man's cigar smoking. Cigar often removed in later versions, coffee added in 1900. Incorrectly attributed in Consuelo Vanderbilt Balsan, Glitter and Gold (1952).
See various early citations and references to refutations at “If you were my husband, I’d poison your coffee” (Nancy Astor to Churchill?) http://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/if_you_were_my_husband_id_poison_your_coffee_nancy_astor_to_churchill, Barry Popik, The Big Apple,' February 09, 2009
Early examples include 19 November 1899, Gazette-Telegraph (CO), "Tales of the Town," p. 7, and early attributions are to American humorists Marshall P. Wilder and De Wolf Hopper.
Churchill by Himself: The Definitive Collection of Quotations, by Richard Langworth, PublicAffairs, 2008, p. 578.
The Yale Book of Quotations, edited by Fred R. Shapiro, New Haven, CT, Yale University Press, 2006, p. 155.
George Thayer, The Washington Post (April 27, 1971), p. B6.
Misattributed
Variant: Lady Nancy Astor: Winston, if you were my husband, I'd put arsenic in your morning coffee.

Winston Churchill: Madam, if you were my wife, I'd drink it.

Robert A. Heinlein photo
Jim Morrison photo
Mercedes Lackey photo
Cassandra Clare photo

“Might I make free with your lettuce, my lady?”

Source: Lady Midnight

Lois McMaster Bujold photo
Diana Gabaldon photo
Sherrilyn Kenyon photo
Bryan Lee O'Malley photo
Jennifer Weiner photo
Cassandra Clare photo

“I would leave at once, but it would be cruel to abandon a lady in a foreign land with a maniac.”

Cassandra Clare (1973) American author

Source: What Really Happened in Peru

Sherrilyn Kenyon photo
Sylvia Plath photo

“A black-sharded lady keeps me in a parrot cage.”

Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) American poet, novelist and short story writer
Sherrilyn Kenyon photo

“Come, my Lady Dangerous, your Daimons await. (Valerius)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Seize the Night

Michel De Montaigne photo

“Kings and philosophers defecate, and so do ladies.”

Michel De Montaigne (1533–1592) (1533-1592) French-Occitan author, humanistic philosopher, statesman

Variant: Kings and philosophers shit—and so do ladies.

Jane Austen photo

“The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel must be intolerably stupid”

Variant: The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel must be intolerably stupid
Source: "Northanger Abbey" (1817)

Rachel Caine photo

“Jealous?"

"Maybe."

"No reason. I like my ladies with a pulse.”

Rachel Caine (1962) American writer

Source: Feast of Fools

Thomas Hardy photo
Sarah Dessen photo
Bertrice Small photo

“The gentlemen like it when a lady smells sweet.”

Bertrice Small (1937–2015) American writer

Source: Lost Love Found

Cassandra Clare photo
Bill Bryson photo

“Uh, I thought DVDs werne't allowed at my sleepovers.
They're not.
Then why am i watching the Lady and the Tramp?”

Lisi Harrison (1970) Canadian writer

Source: Invasion of the Boy Snatchers

Leo Tolstoy photo
Gail Carson Levine photo
Elizabeth Gilbert photo
Gail Carson Levine photo
Margaret Thatcher photo

“To those waiting with bated breath for that favourite media catchphrase, the U-turn, I have only one thing to say: You turn if you want to. [laughter] The lady's not for turning.”

Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) British stateswoman and politician

Reacting to doubt over her economic policies http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/october/10/newsid_2541000/2541071.stm at a Conservative Party Conference (10 October 1980)
A play on The Lady's Not for Burning, a 1948 play by Christopher Fry about a witchcraft trial.
First term as Prime Minister