Quotes about woman (4132 quotes, page 2)

“A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.”

Virginia Woolf book A Room of One's Own

Source: A Room of One's Own (1929), Ch. 1, p. 4

Money

“Love and respect a woman. Look to her not only for comfort, but for strength and inspiration and the doubling of your intellectual and moral powers. Blot out from your mind any idea of superiority; you have none.”

Giuseppe Mazzini (1805–1872) Italian patriot, politician and philosopher

Love , Idea

“A mother takes twenty years to make a man of her boy, and another woman makes a fool of him in twenty minutes.”

Robert Frost (1874–1963) American poet

Fools , Boy

“You can't eat hope,' the woman said.
You can't eat it, but it sustains you,' the colonel replied.”

Gabriel García Márquez book No One Writes to the Colonel

Source: El coronel no tiene quien le escriba

Hope

“A woman should soften but not weaken a man.”

Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) Austrian neurologist known as the founding father of psychoanalysis

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

Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) British stateswoman and politician

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

For women

“A man told me that for a woman, I was very opinionated. I said, 'for a man you're kind of ignorant'.”

Anne Hathaway (1982) American actress

“I have not lived as a woman. I have lived as a man. I've just done what I damn well wanted to, and I've made enough money to support myself, and ain't afraid of being alone.”

Katharine Hepburn (1907–2003) film, stage, and television actress

Money , Support

“No man is good enough to govern any woman without her consent.”

Susan B. Anthony (1820–1906) American women's rights activist

“Where there is a woman there is magic.”

Ntozake Shange (1948–2018) Contemporary African American writer and performance artist

For women

“The most beautiful clothes that can dress a woman are the arms of the man she loves. But for those who haven't had the fortune of finding this happiness, I am there.”

Yves Saint Laurent (1936–2008) fashion designer

Love , Beauty , Clothes , Happiness

“Because if a woman's heart was free a man might have hope.”

Bram Stoker book Dracula

Source: Dracula

Hope , Heart

“Sometimes a woman needs a man for company, no matter how useless he is.”

Lisa Kleypas (1964) American writer

Source: Sugar Daddy

“The enemy is like a woman, weak in face of opposition, but correspondingly strong when not opposed. In a quarrel with a man, it is natural for a woman to lose heart and run away when he faces up to her; on the other hand, if the man begins to be afraid and to give ground, her rage, vindictiveness and fury overflow and know no limit.”

Ignatius of Loyola (1491–1556) Catholic Saint, founder of the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits)

No. 325.
Spiritual Exercises (1548)

Nature , Strong , Rage , Heart

“God assigns as a duty to every man the dignity of every woman.”

Pope John Paul II (1920–2005) 264th Pope of the Catholic Church, saint

General audience of Wednesday, 24 November, which took place in the Paul VI Hall
Source: http://theologyofthebody.us/node/133 (English)

God

“There is no man, let him be aware of it or not, who is not a combatant in this hot contest; no one who does not take an active part in the responsibility of the defeat or victory. The prisoner in his chains and the king on his throne, the poor and the rich, the healthy and the infirm, the wise and the ignorant, the captive and the free, the old man and the child, the civilized and the savage, share equally in the combat. Every word that is pronounced, is either inspired by God or by the world, and necessarily proclaims, implicitly or explicitly, but always clearly, the glory of the one or the triumph of the other. In this singular warfare we all fight through forced enlistment; here the system of substitutes or volunteers finds no place. In it is unknown the exception of sex or age; here no attention is paid to him who says, I am the son of a poor widow; nor to the mother of the paralytic, nor to the wife of the cripple. In this warfare all men born of woman are soldiers.
And don’t tell me you don’t wish to fight; for the moment you tell me that, you are already fighting; nor that you don’t know which side to join, for while you are saying that, you have already joined a side; nor that you wish to remain neutral; for while you are thinking to be so, you are so no longer; nor that you want to be indifferent; for I will laugh at you, because on pronouncing that word you have chosen your party. Don’t tire yourself in seeking a place of security against the chances of war, for you tire yourself in vain; that war is extended as far as space, and prolonged through all time. In eternity alone, the country of the just, can you find rest, because there alone there is no combat. But do not imagine, however, that the gates of eternity shall be opened for you, unless you first show the wounds you bear; those gates are only opened for those who gloriously fought here the battles of the Lord, and were, like the Lord, crucified.”

Juan Donoso Cortés (1809–1853) Spanish author, political theorist and diplomat

Essays on Catholicism, Liberalism, and Socialism (1879)

Men , God , War , Age

“Sex class is so deep as to be invisible. Or it may appear as a superficial inequality, one that can be solved by merely a few reforms, or perhaps by the full integration of women into the labour force. But the reaction of the common man, woman, and child - That? Why you can't change that! You must be out of your mind!”

Shulamith Firestone book The Dialectic of Sex

is the closest to the truth. http://www.marxists.org/subject/women/authors/firestone-shulamith/dialectic-sex.htm
The Dialectic of Sex (1970)

Women , Truth , Sex , Appearance

“The old woman dies, the burden is lifted.”
Obit anus, abit onus.

Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) German philosopher

Statement Schopenhauer wrote in Latin into his account book, after the death of a seamstress to whom he had made court-ordered payments of 15 thalers a quarter for over twenty years, after she had accused him of having injured her arm; as quoted in Modern Philosophy: From Descartes to Schopenhauer and Hartmann (1877) by Francis Bowen, p. 392. Schopenhauer had won the original case, and, being assured by the head of the Kammergericht that the original judgment would be upheld, he left Berlin. In his absence, the judgement was overturned. Schopenhauer believed that the seamstress was feigning her injuries and that she would be sly enough to do so for the remainder of her life. The only visible signs of the assault were a few minor bruises. ; as quoted in A Biography" (2010) by David E. Cartwright, p. 408-411.

“Is there anything in the world more graceless, more dishonouring, than to desire a woman whom you will never have?”

George Orwell book Burmese Days

Ch XX
Burmese Days (1934)

World

“[T]he outcry against killing women, if you accept killing at all, is sheer sentimentality. Why is it worse to kill a woman than a man?”

George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist

"As I Please," Tribune (14 July 1944)<sup> http://alexpeak.com/twr/orwell/quotes/</sup>
"As I Please" (1943–1947)

Women

“A woman who says 'because I am working I will not be a mother' is actually denying her feminity.”

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (1954) 12th President of Turkey from 2014

As quoted in "Turkey's Erdogan says childless women are 'incomplete'" http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/06/turkey-erdogan-childless-women-incomplete-160606042442710.html, Al Jazeera (June 6, 2016)

“But the exceedingly foul deed of Onan, the basest of wretches, follows. Onan must have been a malicious and incorrigible scoundrel. This is a most disgraceful sin. It is far more atrocious than incest and adultery. We call it unchastity, yes a Sodomitic sin. For Onan goes in to her; that is, he lies with her and copulates, and when it comes to the point of insemination, spills the semen, lest the woman conceive. Surely at such a time the order of nature established by God in procreation should be followed. Accordingly, it was a most disgraceful crime to produce semen and excite the woman, and to frustrate her at that very moment.”

Martin Luther (1483–1546) seminal figure in Protestant Reformation

Luther's works Vol. 7 (1965), Lectures on Genesis, Chapters 38-44

God , Nature , Time

“Nothing ages a woman like living in the country.”

Colette (1873–1954) 1873-1954 French novelist: wrote Gigi

L'Envers du music hall (Music Hall Sidelights), "On Tour" (1913)

Age , Country

“People ask, "Why do you dress like a woman?" I don't dress like a woman. I dress like a drag queen.”

RuPaul (1960) Actriz de Televisa, dueña y señora de los ejidos cacaoahuateros

Quoted in Let's Talk about Sex: More Than 600 Quotes on the World's Oldest Obsession, Felicia Zopol, ed. (2002)

People

“What a man sacrifices in struggling for his Volk, a woman sacrifices in struggling to preserve this Volk in individual cases. What a man gives in heroic courage on the battlefield, woman gives in eternally patient devotion, in eternally patient suffering and endurance. Every child to which she gives birth is a battle which she wages in her Volk’s fateful question of to be or not to be.”

Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) Führer and Reich Chancellor of Germany, Leader of the Nazi Party

Speech from the Sixth Nazi Party Congress, Nuremberg (September 8th, 1934), quoted in Hitler: speeches and proclamations, 1932-1945 - Volume 2 - Page 533 https://books.google.com/books?id=a9dVAAAAYAAJ&q=What+a+man+sacrifices+in+struggling+for+his+Volk,+a+woman+sacrifices+in+struggling+to+preserve+this+Volk+in+individual+cases&dq=What+a+man+sacrifices+in+struggling+for+his+Volk,+a+woman+sacrifices+in+struggling+to+preserve+this+Volk+in+individual+cases&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj8id_w8-TWAhXIRSYKHSn5CV0Q6AEILDAB
1930s

Fate , Birth , Courage , Question

“For each of us as women, there is a dark place within where hidden and growing our true spirit rises, “Beautiful and tough as chestnut/stanchions against our nightmare of weakness” and of impotence. These places of possibility within ourselves are dark because they are ancient and hidden; they have survived and grown strong through darkness. Within these deep places, each one of us holds an incredible reserve of creativity and power, of unexamined and unrecorded emotion and feeling. The woman’s place of power within each of us is neither white nor surface; it is dark, it is ancient, and it is deep.”

Audre Lorde (1934–1992) writer and activist

"Poetry is Not a Luxury"
Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches (1984)

Women , Beauty , Feeling , Strong

“A woman can forgive a man for the harm he does her,” he said, “but she can never forgive him for the sacrifices he makes on her account.”

W. Somerset Maugham book The Moon and Sixpence

Source: The Moon and Sixpence (1919), Ch. 41, p. 142

Forgiveness

“I wasn't a woman, I was a song factory.”

Dalida (1933–1987) French singer, actress, model and beauty pageant titleholder

“A woman’s attachment to her husband may elevate her to the body of a man in her next life, but a mans attachment to woman will degrade him, and in his next life he will get the body of a woman.”

A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada (1896–1977) Indian guru

Srimad Bhagavatam, Bhaktivedanta Book Trust, 1999. Canto 3, Chapter 31, verse 41, purport. Vedabase http://www.vedabase.com/en/sb/3/31/41
Quotes from Books: Loving God, Quotes from Books: Regression of Women's Rights

Life

“Only a numskull is pleased at being a so-called 'success' with women, only a dunderhead is puffed up by it. A real man is much more likely to be dismayed at realizing that a woman has lost her heart to him when he can't reciprocate her feelings.”

Stefan Zweig book Beware of Pity

Beware of Pity (1939)

Women , Feeling , Success , Heart

“Do women need sovereignty—not only over their own bodies as currently understood in the United States…; but control of a boundary further away from their bodies, a defended boundary? Do women need land and an army…; or a feminist government in exile…? Or is it simpler: the bed belongs to the woman; the house belongs to the woman; any land belongs to the woman; if a male intimate is violent he is removed from the place where she has the superior and inviolate claim, arrested, denied parole, and prosecuted….. Could women "set a high price on our blood"? Could women set any price on our blood? Could women manage self-defense if not retaliation? Would self-defense be enough? Could women execute men who raped or beat or tortured women?…. [¶]…. Could the acts of women in behalf of women … have a code of honor woman-to-woman that weakens the male-dominant demands of nationalism or race-pride or ethnic pride? Could women commit treason to the men of their own group: put women first, even the putative enemy women? Do women have enough militancy and self-respect to see themselves as the central makers of legal codes, ethics, honor codes, and culture?”

Andrea Dworkin book Scapegoat: The Jews, Israel, and Women's Liberation

Source: Scapegoat: The Jews, Israel, and Women's Liberation (2000), p. 246.

Women , Men , Housing

“That is it. Did you notice those pumpkins and eggplants? They are big, aren’t they? The plants bear fruit because the flowers bloom. Not a single plant bears fruit without its flower. Now ponder deeply. The world says woman is unclean, but there is nothing unclean about woman. Man and woman are equally children of God and there is no discrimination. Woman has a duty, a duty to bear children. Her monthly period is the flower. Without the flower there is no fruit. Understand this well. Take the pumpkin; if its big flower is gone, that is the end of it. In many things, there are flowers that bear no fruit. But to bear fruit without any flower is impossible. Ponder deeply. There is nothing unclean about it.”

Nakayama Miki (1798–1887) Founder of Tenrikyo

Anecdotes of Oyasama, Foundress of Tenrikyo, from Anecdote 158, "Monthly Period is the Flower," p. 128.
Anecdotes of Oyasama

God , Children , World , Flowers

“How long in woman lasts the fire of love,
If eye or touch do not relight it often.”

Dante Alighieri book Purgatorio

Canto VIII, lines 77–78 (tr. Longfellow).
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Purgatorio

Love

“Michael Moorcock: Several reviewers accused you of saying that all intercourse was rape. I haven't found a hint of that anywhere in the book. Is that what you are saying?
Dworkin: No, I wasn't saying that and I didn't say that, then or ever.… My point was that as long as the law allows statutory exemption for a husband from rape charges, no married woman has legal protection from rape. I also argued, based on a reading of our laws, that marriage mandated intercourse — it was compulsory, part of the marriage contract. Under the circumstances, I said, it was impossible to view sexual intercourse in marriage as the free act of a free woman.”

Andrea Dworkin (1946–2005) Feminist writer

Interview in New Statesman & Society (21 April 1995), discussing her books Intercourse and Right Wing Women.

Marriage , Books , Law , Reading

“The next Christ will perhaps be a female Christ. But do we see one woman who looks like a female Christ? or even like "the messenger before" her "face", to go before her and prepare the hearts and minds for her?”

Florence Nightingale (1820–1910) English social reformer and statistician, and the founder of modern nursing

Cassandra (1860)
Context: The great reformers of the world turn into the great misanthropists, if circumstances or organisation do not permit them to act. Christ, if He had been a woman, might have been nothing but a great complainer. Peace be with the misanthropists! They have made a step in progress; the next will make them great philanthropists; they are divided but by a line.
The next Christ will perhaps be a female Christ. But do we see one woman who looks like a female Christ? or even like "the messenger before" her "face", to go before her and prepare the hearts and minds for her?
To this will be answered that half the inmates of Bedlam begin in this way, by fancying that they are "the Christ."
People talk about imitating Christ, and imitate Him in the little trifling formal things, such as washing the feet, saying His prayer, and so on; but if anyone attempts the real imitation of Him, there are no bounds to the outcry with which the presumption of that person is condemned.

Heart , Christ

“Woman, please let me explain
I never meant to cause you sorrow or pain
So let me tell you again and again and again…
I love you
Now and forever.”

John Lennon (1940–1980) English singer and songwriter

"Woman"
Lyrics, Double Fantasy (1980)

Love , Pain

“Where did your Christ come from? From God and a woman! Man had nothing to do with Him.”

Sojourner Truth (1797–1883) African-American abolitionist and women's rights activist

Ain't I a Woman? Speech (1851)
Context: That little man in black there, he says women can't have as much rights as men, 'cause Jesus Christ wasn't a woman! Where did your Christ come from? Where did your Christ come from? From God and a woman! Man had nothing to do with Him.

God , Christ

“If I have attained something in this world, it was not my personal qualities that originally brought this about. Rather my achievements are only a symbol of the fact that woman, after all, is already on the march to general recognition.”

Alexandra Kollontai (1872–1952) Soviet diplomat

The Autobiography of a Sexually Emancipated Communist Woman (1926)
Context: If I have attained something in this world, it was not my personal qualities that originally brought this about. Rather my achievements are only a symbol of the fact that woman, after all, is already on the march to general recognition. It is the drawing of millions of women into productive work, which was swiftly effected especially during the war and which thrust into the realm of possibility the fact that a woman could be advanced to the highest political and diplomatic positions. Nevertheless it is obvious that only a country of the future, such as the Soviet Union, can dare to confront woman without any prejudice, to appraise her only from the standpoint of her skills and talents, and, accordingly, to entrust her with responsible tasks. Only the fresh revolutionary storms were strong enough to sweep away hoary prejudices against woman and only the productive-working people is able to effect the complete equalization and liberation of woman by building a new society.

World , Personality

“To be completely woman you need a master, and in him a compass for your life. You need a man you can look up to and respect. If you dethrone him it's no wonder that you are discontented, and discontented women are not loved for long.”

Marlene Dietrich (1901–1992) German-American actress and singer

Love , Life , Making love , Women

“In Europe, it doesn't matter if you're a man or a woman - we make love with anyone we find attractive.”

Marlene Dietrich (1901–1992) German-American actress and singer

Love , Making love

“In fact, the most difficult thing for a director like me is to find the right people; it is enough to put in a group a man or a woman or a wrong person that everything is compromised.”

Rocco Siffredi (1964) Italian pornographic actor, director, producer and entrepreneur

Interview by Andrea Di Marcantonio

Personality , People

“She looked at him helplessly. After all, it was no use. There was this money-business standing in the way - these meaningless scruples which she had never understood but which she had accepted merely because they were his. She felt all the impotence, the resentment of a woman who sees an abstract idea triumphing over common sense.”

George Orwell book Keep the Aspidistra Flying

Source: Keep the Aspidistra Flying (1936), Ch. 10

Money , Business , Sense , Way

“The feeling of motherhood in a woman becomes stronger as she grows older. In fact a time comes when every man is like a son in the eyes of a woman. There is not an ounce of sexual desire left in her heart. But his stage never comes in a man…he can never free himself from sexual desires.”

Premchand (1880–1936) Hindi writer

In the novel Bhoot quoted in page=92.
Portrayal of Women in Premchands Stories A Critique

Time , Feeling , Heart

“God only knows what she thought. My environment contained nothing more alien than writing or the desire to express one’s self in writing. But I never forgot the look of astonishment and bewilderment on the young woman’s face when I had finished reading and glanced at her. Her inability to grasp what I had done or was trying to do somehow gratified me. Afterwards whenever I thought of her reaction I smiled happily for some unaccountable reason.”

Richard Wright book Black Boy

Black Boy (1945)

Self-confidence , God , Smile , Reading

“When you capture a woman’s soul prior to a sexual encounter, consider yourself extremely fortunate.”

Gandolfo – (RJ Intindola)

1980

Soul

“If you play close attention, you will see that the most masculine man has a feminine soul, and the most feminine woman has a masculine soul.”

C.G. Jung book Libro rojo

Source: The Red Book: Liber Novus, s. 263

“Physically, man and woman cannot be the same. It is only when you elevate your mind to the spiritual level that you will see oneness in all.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

“Polygamy is so beautiful for men. But a woman marrying two husbands that could end up as a BREAKING NEWS.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Beauty , Men

“With the right tools at hand, a woman is capable to do anything in life.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Life

“Without a woman, there will be no hope in the near future.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Future , Hope

“The decision whether or not to bear a child is central to a woman’s life, to her well-being and dignity. It is a decision she must make for herself. When Government controls that decision for her, she is being treated as less than a fully adult human responsible for her own choices.”

Ruth Bader Ginsburg (1933) Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

1993 Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearings. As quoted in: Olivia Waxman (August 2, 2018): Ruth Bader Ginsburg Wishes This Case Had Legalized Abortion Instead of Roe v. Wade. In: Time Magazine. Archived https://web.archive.org/web/20220527151841/https://time.com/5354490/ruth-bader-ginsburg-roe-v-wade/ from [hhttps://time.com/5354490/ruth-bader-ginsburg-roe-v-wade/ the original] on May 27, 2022. As quoted in: Louise Melling (Deputy Legal Director and Director of Ruth Bader Ginsburg Center for Liberty, ACLU) (September 23, 2020): For Justice Ginsburg, Abortion Was About Equality. In: American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). Archived https://web.archive.org/web/20220527144342/https://www.aclu.org/news/reproductive-freedom/for-justice-ginsburg-abortion-was-about-equality from the original https://www.aclu.org/news/reproductive-freedom/for-justice-ginsburg-abortion-was-about-equality on May 27, 2022.
1990s

Decision , Life

“And now, my poor old woman, why are you crying so bitterly? It is autumn. The leaves are falling from the trees like burning tears- the wind howls. Why must you mimic them?”

Mervyn Peake book Titus Groan

Source: Titus Groan

Autumn , Tear , Tree , Cry

“Chastity… has, even now, a religious importance in a woman's life, and has so wrapped itself round with nerves and instincts that to cut it free and bring it to the light of day demands courage of the rarest.”

Virginia Woolf book A Room of One's Own

Source: A Room of One's Own

Life , Courage , Light

“No matter how plain a woman may be, if truth and honesty are written across her face, she will be beautiful.”

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) American politician, diplomat, and activist, and First Lady of the United States

Beauty , Truth , Beauty

“Always remember that when a man goes out of the room, he leaves everything in it behind… When a woman goes out she carries everything that happened in the room along with her.”

Alice Munro book Too Much Happiness

Source: "Too Much Happiness", in Too Much Happiness (2009)

“I don't like compliments, and I don't see why a man should think he is pleasing a woman enormously when he says to her a whole heap of things that he doesn't mean.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

Thinking

“I don't know how to talk.
Oh! talk to every woman as if you loved her, and to every man as if he bored you, and at the end of your first season you will have the reputation of possessing the most perfect social tact.”

Oscar Wilde A Woman of No Importance

Source: A Woman of No Importance

Love , Perfection , Season

“Let every woman, who has once begun to think, examine herself”

Margaret Fuller book Woman in the Nineteenth Century

Source: Woman in the Nineteenth Century

Thinking

“Men are jealous of every woman, even when they don’t have the slightest interest in her themselves.”

Jan Neruda (1834–1891) Czech poet, theater reviewer, publicist and writer

Source: Prague Tales

Men

“But there are things that happen between a man and a woman in the dark -- that sort of make everything else seem -- unimportant.”

Tennessee Williams (1911–1983) American playwright

“That man that hath a tongue, I say is no man, if with his tongue he cannot win a woman.”

William Shakespeare The Two Gentlemen of Verona

Source: The Two Gentlemen of Verona

“To tell a woman who is forty, "You look like sixteen," is boloney. The blarney way of saying it is "Tell me how old you are, I should like to know at what age women are the most beautiful.”

Fulton J. Sheen (1895–1979) Catholic bishop and television presenter

Women , Age , Beauty , Way

“Life, woman, life is God's most precious gift; no principle, however glorious, may justify the taking of it.”

Arthur Miller The Crucible

John Hale
Source: The Crucible (1953)
Context: It is mistaken law that leads you to sacrifice. Life, woman, life is God's most precious gift; no principle, however glorious, may justify the taking of it. I beg you, woman, prevail upon your husband to confess. Let him give his lie. Quail not before God's judgment in this, for it may well be God damns a liar less than he that throws his life away for pride.

Life , God

“I was the first woman to burn my bra - it took the fire department four days to put it out.”

Dolly Parton (1946) American singer-songwriter and actress

“The first man to compare the cheeks of a young woman to a rose was obviously a poet; the first to repeat it was possibly an idiot.”

Salvador Dalí (1904–1989) Spanish artist

Quote from Dialogues with Marcel Duchamp (1987) by Pierre Cabanne
Quotes of Salvador Dali, 1981 - 1989

“It is fatal to be a man or woman pure and simple: one must be a woman manly, or a man womanly.”

Virginia Woolf book A Room of One's Own

Variant: It is fatal to be a man or woman pure and simple; one must be woman-manly or man-womanly.... Some marriage of opposites has to be consummated.
Source: A Room of One's Own

“If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, the women together ought to be able to turn back and get it right side up again! and now they is asking to do it, the men better let them.”

Sojourner Truth (1797–1883) African-American abolitionist and women's rights activist

Ain't I a Woman? Speech (1851)

Women , Men , God , World

“It is perfectly natural for the future woman to feel indignant at the limitations posed upon her by her sex. The real question is not why she should reject them: the problem is rather to understand why she accepts them.”

Simone de Beauvoir book The Second Sex

Source: The Second Sex

Sex , Feeling , Understanding , Question

“The especial genius of Woman I believe to be electrical in movement, intuitive in function, spiritual in tendency.”

Margaret Fuller book Woman in the Nineteenth Century

Woman in the Nineteenth Century (1845)

“Anytime a woman competes with another woman she demeans herself.”

Sherry Argov (1977) American writer

Source: Why Men Love Bitches: From Doormat to Dreamgirl—A Woman's Guide to Holding Her Own in a Relationship

“You don't know a woman until you've met her in court.”

Norman Mailer (1923–2007) American novelist, journalist, essayist, playwright, film maker, actor and political candidate

“Evil indeed is the man who has not one woman to mourn him.”

Arthur Conan Doyle book The Hound of the Baskervilles

Source: The Hound of the Baskervilles

Evil

“A man can sleep around, no questions asked, but if a woman makes nineteen or twenty mistakes she's a tramp.”

Joan Rivers (1933–2014) American comedian, actress, and television host

As quoted in Funny Ladies (2001), by B. Adler, p. 147

Question , Sleep

“We still think of a powerful man as a born leader and a powerful woman as an anomaly.”

Margaret Atwood (1939) Canadian writer

For women , Thinking

“A woman can put up with almost anything; anything but indifference.”

Ian Fleming (1908–1964) English author, journalist and naval intelligence officer

Indifference

“How can a woman be expected to be happy with a man who insists on treating her as if she were a perfectly normal human being”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

Happy , Relationship , Happiness

“I have not yet spoken my last word about women. I believe that if a woman succeeds in withdrawing from the mass, or rather raising herself from above the mass, she grows ceaselessly and more than a man.”

Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) German philosopher

Source: Schopenhauer and the Wild Years of Philosophy

Women

“The best protection any woman can have… is courage.”

Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815–1902) Suffragist and Women's Rights activist

Courageous , For women , Graduation , Courage

“Love, the poet said, is woman's whole existence.”

Virginia Woolf book Orlando: A Biography

Source: Orlando

Love

“My dear boy, no woman is a genius. Women are a decorative sex. They never have anything to say, but they say it charmingly. Women represent the triumph of matter over mind, just as men represent the triumph of mind over morals.”

Oscar Wilde book The Picture of Dorian Gray

Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray

Women , Men , Sex , Boy

“I declare to you that woman must not depend upon the protection of man, but must be taught to protect herself, and there I take my stand.”

Susan B. Anthony (1820–1906) American women's rights activist

Speech in San Francisco (July 1871)
Variant: Woman must not depend upon the protection of man, but must be taught to protect herself.

Dependency