“A woman withers when she is watered only with tears.”
Andrzej Majewski (1966) Polish writer and photographer
Aphorisms. Magnum in Parvo (2000)
Quotes about woman
A collection of quotes on the topic of woman, man, herring, love.
Quotes about woman
“As usual, there is a great woman behind every idiot.”
John Lennon (1940–1980) English singer and songwriter
“The biggest coward of a man is to awaken the love of a woman without the intention of loving her.”
Bob Marley (1945–1981) Jamaican singer, songwriter, musician
“A woman's heart should be so hidden in God that a man has to seek Him just to find her.”
Maya Angelou (1928–2014) American author and poet
Friedrich Nietzsche book Thus Spoke Zarathustra
Variant: The real man wants two different things: danger and play. Therefore he wants woman, as the most dangerous plaything.
Source: Thus Spoke Zarathustra
“A woman's heart should be so hidden in God that a man has to seek Him just to find her.”
Max Lucado (1955) American clergyman and writer
“To some, woman is heresy and diabolical. To me she is just the opposite.”
Vincent Van Gogh (1853–1890) Dutch post-Impressionist painter (1853-1890)
1880s, 1884, Letter to Theo (Nuenen, Oct. 1884)
Context: Oh, I am no friend of present-day Christianity, though its Founder was sublime - I have seen through present-day Christianity only too well. That icy coldness hypnotized even me, in my youth - but I have taken my revenge since then. How? By worshipping the love which they, the theologians, call sin, by respecting a whore [ Sien in The Hague ]), etc., and not too many would-be respectable, pious ladies. To some, woman is heresy and diabolical. To me she is just the opposite.
“As long as she thinks of a man, nobody objects to a woman thinking.”
Virginia Woolf book Orlando: A Biography
Source: Orlando: A Biography (1928), Ch. 6
“Beware when making a woman cry. God is counting her tears.”
Paulo Coelho book Adultery
Source: Adultery
“Being a woman is a terribly difficult trade since it consists principally of dealings with men.”
Joseph Conrad book Chance
Source: Chance (1913) part II, Ch. 5
“Behind every great man is not a woman, she is beside him, she is with him, not behind him”
Tariq Ramadan (1962) Swiss muslim scholar
“Music should strike fire from the heart of man, and bring tears from the eyes of woman.”
Ludwig Van Beethoven (1770–1827) German Romantic composer
“Nothing makes a woman more beautiful than the belief that she is beautiful.”
Sophia Loren (1934) Italian actress
As quoted in The Subtlety of Emotions (2001) by Aaron Ben-Ze'ev, p. 204.
“Ev'rything's gonna be alright
So, no woman, no cry.”
Bob Marley (1945–1981) Jamaican singer, songwriter, musician
Disputed, No Woman, No Cry, from the album Natty Dread (1974)
Andrea Dworkin (1946–2005) Feminist writer
Speech at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge (September 26, 1975). "The Root Cause", ch. 9, Our Blood (1976).
Elizabeth I of England (1533–1603) Queen regnant of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until 1603
Speech to the Troops at Tilbury (1588)
Context: I know I have the body but of a weak and feeble woman; but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and of a king of England too, and think foul scorn that Parma or Spain, or any prince of Europe, should dare to invade the borders of my realm.
Virginia Woolf book Three Guineas
Source: Three Guineas (1938), Ch. 3, p. 109
Context: The outsider will say, "in fact, as a woman, I have no country. As a woman I want no country. As a woman my country is the whole world." And if, when reason has said its say, still some obstinate emotion remains, some love of England dropped into a child's ears by the cawing of rooks in an elm tree, by the splash of waves on a beach, or by English voices murmuring nursery rhymes, this drop of pure, if irrational, emotion she will make serve her to give to England first what she desires of peace and freedom for the whole world.
“I am not free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are very different from my own.”
Audre Lorde (1934–1992) writer and activist
(1981) Audre Lorde, “The Uses of Anger: Women Responding to Racism”
Thomas Sankara (1949–1987) President of Upper Volta
Source: Women's Liberation and the African Freedom Struggle
F. Scott Fitzgerald book The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Source: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Dilma Rousseff (1947) 36th President of Brazil
First speech http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/nov/01/dilma-rousseff-wins-brazil-president after being elected President, October 31. <br class="br">2010
Theano (philosopher) Ancient philosopher
From Essay XX by Michel de Montaigne (translated by Charles Cotton, Macmillan London 1877).
Marianne von Werefkin (1860–1938) expressionist painter
written in her Journal, 1905
Quote of Werefkin's Journal, 1905; in Briefe an einen Unbekannten, ed. Clemens Weiler, Cologne: Verlag M. DuMont, 1960, p. 50
1895 - 1905
Camille Paglia (1947) American writer
Source: Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson (1990), p. 521
Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) Bengali polymath
59 <br class="br"> The Gardener http://www.spiritualbee.com/love-poems-by-tagore/ (1915)
Jeff Buckley (1966–1997) American singer, guitarist and songwriter
B-Side Magazine, October/November 1994
From Interviews
Serena Williams (1981) American tennis player
usopen.org http://www.usopen.org/en_US/news/interviews/2014-08-30/201408301409438446669.html
“The best curve on a woman's body is her smile. ”
Bob Marley (1945–1981) Jamaican singer, songwriter, musician
John Chrysostom (349–407) important Early Church Father
St. John Chrysostom, Homily 24 on the Epistle to the Romans [PG 60:626-27] https://www.patheos.com/blogs/davearmstrong/2017/10/contraception-early-church-teaching-william-klimon.html
“Nothing spoils romance so much as a sense of humor in the woman”
Oscar Wilde A Woman of No Importance
Source: A Woman of No Importance
“A man does what he can; a woman does what a man cannot.”
Isabel Allende book Inés of My Soul
Source: Inés of My Soul
“Men always want to be a woman's first love - women like to be a man's last romance.”
Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet
“A man can be happy with any woman as long as he does not love her.”
Oscar Wilde book The Picture of Dorian Gray
Variant: A man can be happy with any woman, as long as he does not love her.
Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray
“A woman never tells you why she loves; she just tells you how she loves.”
Fulton J. Sheen (1895–1979) Catholic bishop and television presenter
Source: Life Is Worth Living
“Every woman is a rebel, and usually in wild revolt against herself.”
Oscar Wilde A Woman of No Importance
Source: A Woman of No Importance
“The most beautiful clothes that can dress a woman are the arms of the man she loves.”
Yves Saint Laurent (1936–2008) fashion designer
Jordan Peterson (1962) Canadian clinical psychologist, cultural critic, and professor of psychology
Bible Series V: Cain and Abel: The Hostile Brothers
Concepts
Edith Stein (1891–1942) Jewish-German nun, theologian and philosopher
Essays on Woman (1996), Fundamental Principles of Women's Education (1931)
“There is nothing more beautiful than a beautiful woman.”
Gianni Agnelli (1921–2003) Italian businessman
Agnelli: The Rules of the Game, Vanity Fair (1991)
Suleiman (1494–1566) Sultan of the Ottoman Empire
Mansel, Philip, Constantinople: city of the world's desire 1453-1924 (1995), p. 84
Written to his wife - see the article Hurrem for another translation of this verse.
Poetry
Lady Gaga (1986) American singer, songwriter, and actress
SHOWstudio Interview. In Camera with Lady Gaga 30 May 2010. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmcxdZQCnT4&feature=PlayList&p=6DB0E6483F09B62E&playnext_from=PL&playnext=1.
Vera Rubin (1928–2016) American astronomer
As quoted in NPR obituary http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/12/26/507022497/vera-rubin-who-confirmed-existence-of-dark-matter-dies-at-88
Leonard Bernstein (1918–1990) American composer, conductor, author, music lecturer, and pianist
Leonard Bernstein, statement of 1953, quoted in A Wonderful Life : 50 Eulogies to Lift the Spirit (2006) by Cyrus M. Copeland, p. 190
“The extraordinary woman depends on the ordinary woman.”
Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) English writer
"Women and Fiction"
Granite and Rainbow (1958)
Context: The extraordinary woman depends on the ordinary woman. It is only when we know what were the conditions of the average woman's life … it is only when we can measure the way of life and the experience of life made possible to the ordinary woman that we can account for the success or failure of the extraordinary woman as a writer.
Sojourner Truth (1797–1883) African-American abolitionist and women's rights activist
Ain't I a Woman? Speech (1851)
Context: That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain't I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain't I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man — when I could get it — and bear the lash as well! And ain't I a woman? I have borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother's grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain't I a woman?
David Lane (white nationalist) (1938–2007) American white supremacist, convicted felon
Drugs and Governments
Focus Fourteen
Charles Bukowski book Women
Variant: Once a woman turns against you, forget it. They can love you, then something turns in them. They can watch you dying in a gutter, run over by a car, and they’ll spit on you.
Source: Women (1978)
“A woman who can threaten your life before breakfast is the only sort of woman worth having.”
Nora Roberts (1950) American romance writer
Source: Black Hills
“One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.”
Simone de Beauvoir book The Second Sex
On ne naît pas femme: on le devient.
Bk. 2, Pt.. 4, Ch. 1: Childhood, p. 267
Source: The Second Sex (1949)
Anne Frank (1929–1945) victim of the Holocaust and author of a diary
Source: The Diary of a Young Girl
Anne Brontë book The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
Preface, 2nd edition (22 July 1848)
Source: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848)
Context: I am satisfied that if a book is a good one, it is so whatever the sex of the author may be. All novels are, or should be, written for both men and women to read, and I am at loss to conceive how a man should permit himself to write anything that would be really disgraceful to a woman, or why a woman should be censured for writing anything that would be proper and becoming for a man.
“Only a woman can make you feel wrong for doing something right.”
Chris Rock (1965) American comedian, actor, screenwriter, television producer, film producer, and director
John Steinbeck book East of Eden
Variant: My father said she was a strong woman, and I believe a strong woman may be stronger than a man, particularly if she happens to have love in her heart. I guess a loving woman is almost indestructible.
Source: East of Eden
“It's awful bad luck to bring a woman aboard the ship."
"It's awful worse luck not to.”
Johnny Depp (1963) American actor, film producer, and musician
Andrea Dworkin book Intercourse
Source: Intercourse (1987), Chapter 7
Context: But the hatred of women is a source of sexual pleasure for men in its own right. Intercourse appears to be the expression of that contempt in pure form, in the form of a sexed hierarchy; it requires no passion or heart because it is power without invention articulating the arrogance of those who do the fucking. Intercourse is the pure, sterile, formal expression of men's contempt for women; but that contempt can turn gothic and express itself in many sexual and sadistic practices that eschew intercourse per se. Any violation of a woman's body can become sex for men; this is the essential truth of pornography.
“I never was in love - yet the voice and the shape of a woman has haunted me these two days.”
John Keats (1795–1821) English Romantic poet
“A woman's guess is much more accurate than a man's certainty.”
Rudyard Kipling book Plain Tales from the Hills
Source: Plain Tales from the Hills
“What kind of a woman greets the Beast Lord with 'here, kitty, kitty'?”
Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo
Source: Magic Bites
Oscar Wilde The Importance of Being Earnest
Algernon, Act I.
Variant: All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That’s his.
Source: The Importance of Being Earnest (1895)
Matthew Henry (1662–1714) Theologician from Wales
Genesis 2:21.
Commentaries
Variant: Eve was not taken out of Adam's head to top him, neither out of his feet to be trampled on by him, but out of his side to be equal with him, under his arm to be protected by him, and near his heart to be loved by him.
Source: Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible
Myles Munroe (1954–2014) Bahamian Evangelical Christian minister
Source: The Purpose and Power of Love & Marriage
“As long as a woman can look ten years younger than her daughter, she is perfectly satisfied”
Oscar Wilde book The Picture of Dorian Gray
Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray
“If you can make a woman laugh, you can make her do anything.”
Marilyn Monroe (1926–1962) American actress, model, and singer
“I am a Woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal Woman,
that's me.”
Maya Angelou (1928–2014) American author and poet
Thomas Hardy (1840–1928) English novelist and poet
Variant: When a strong woman recklessly throws away her strength she is worse than a weak woman who has never had any strength to throw away.
Source: Tess of the D'Urbervilles
“A man may stand for the justice of God, but a woman stands for His Mercy.”
Fulton J. Sheen (1895–1979) Catholic bishop and television presenter
Source: Life Is Worth Living
“Every woman adores a Fascist,
The boot in the face, the brute
Brute heart of a brute like you.”
Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) American poet, novelist and short story writer
Source: Ariel: The Restored Edition
“Heav'n has no Rage, like Love to Hatred turn'd,
Nor Hell a Fury, like a Woman scorn'd.”
William Congreve The Mourning Bride
Act III, scene viii; often paraphrased: "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned". A similar line occurs in Love's Last Shift, by Colley Cibber, act iv.: "We shall find no fiend in hell can match the fury of a disappointed woman".
The Mourning Bride (1697)
Variant: Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned,
Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned.
Context: Vile and ingrate! too late thou shalt repent
The base Injustice thou hast done my Love:
Yes, thou shalt know, spite of thy past Distress,
And all those Ills which thou so long hast mourn'd;
Heav'n has no Rage, like Love to Hatred turn'd,
Nor Hell a Fury, like a Woman scorn'd.
“Show me a woman who doesn't feel guilty and I'll show you a man.”
Erica Jong (1942) Novelist, poet, memoirist, critic