“Woman is not made to be the admiration of all, but the happiness of one.”
Edmund Burke (1729–1797) Anglo-Irish statesman
Quotes about woman page 3
“Love between a man and woman is war.”
August Strindberg (1849–1912) Swedish playwright, novelist, poet, essayist and painter
Lewis Carroll (1832–1898) English writer, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer
Source: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass
“Its a beautiful woman's fate to be the subject of conversation where ever she goes”
Oscar Wilde book The Picture of Dorian Gray
Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray
George Monbiot (1963) English writer and political activist
"The Self-Attribution Fallacy" http://www.monbiot.com/2011/11/07/the-self-attribution-fallacy/, 7 November 2011.
“A woman has to live her life, or live to repent not having lived it.”
D.H. Lawrence book Lady Chatterley's Lover
Source: Lady Chatterley's Lover
“A dress should be tight enough to show you're a woman and loose enough to prove you're a lady.”
Edith Head (1897–1981) American film and television costumer
Source: The Dress Doctor
“Sometimes I wish I was a woman, just so I could have an abortion.”
John Waters (1946) American filmmaker, actor, comedian and writer
“Poetry is a naked woman, a naked man, and the distance between them.”
Lawrence Ferlinghetti (1919) American artist, writer and activist
Source: Poetry as Insurgent Art
“Woman was God’s second mistake.”
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist
“Woman begins by resisting a man's advances and ends by blocking his retreat.”
Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet
“A woman has got to love a bad man once or twice in her life, to be thankful for a good one.”
Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings (1896–1953) American novelist
W.E.B. Du Bois (1868–1963) American sociologist, historian, activist and writer
Source: A W.E.B. Du Bois Reader
“A sensible woman can never be happy with a fool.”
George Washington (1732–1799) first President of the United States
“You can learn a lot about a woman by getting smashed with her.”
Tom Waits (1949) American singer-songwriter and actor
Oscar Wilde The Importance of Being Earnest
Algernon, Act I
Source: The Importance of Being Earnest (1895)
Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) American politician, diplomat, and activist, and First Lady of the United States
“No matter what a woman looks like, if she's confident, she's sexy”
Paris Hilton (1981) American socialite
“I see a woman may be made a fool,
If she had not a spirit to resist.”
William Shakespeare The Taming of the Shrew
Source: The Taming of the Shrew
“The only time a woman really succeeds in changing a man is when he's a baby.”
Natalie Wood (1938–1981) American actress
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.
“Stupidity in a woman is unfeminine.”
Friedrich Nietzsche book Human, All Too Human
Source: Human, All Too Human
Betty Friedan book The Feminine Mystique
Interviews with Betty Friedan, Janann Sherman, ed. Univ. Press of Mississippi, 2002, ISBN 1578064805, p. x.
Source: The Feminine Mystique
“Every woman should have a purse of her own.”
Susan B. Anthony (1820–1906) American women's rights activist
William Makepeace Thackeray Vanity Fair
Vol. I, ch. 4. Compare: "I should like to see any kind of a man, distinguishable from a gorilla, that some good and even pretty woman could not shape a husband out of", Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., The Professor at the Breakfast Table; "The whole world is strewn with snares, traps, gins and pitfalls for the capture of men by women", Bernard Shaw, Epistle Dedicatory to Man and Superman.
Source: Vanity Fair (1847–1848)
“There comes a time in every woman's life when the only thing that helps is a glass of champagne.”
Bette Davis (1908–1989) film and television actress from the United States
“When a woman tells the truth she is creating the possibility for more truth around her.”
Adrienne Rich (1929–2012) American poet, essayist and feminist
“Why is it that a woman can see from a distance what a man cannot see close?”
Thomas Hardy book The Return of the Native
Source: The Return of the Native
“A man who wants to make a relationship work will move mountains to keep the
woman he loves”
Greg Behrendt (1963) American comedian
Source: He's Just Not That Into You: The No-Excuses Truth to Understanding Guys
Salvador Dalí book The Secret Life of Salvador Dalí
In The Secret Life of Salvador Dalí - first publication in 1942
Quotes of Salvador Dali, 1941 - 1950
Source: The Secret Life of Salvador Dali
“Never cross a woman with a star on a stick, young lady. They've got a mean streak.”
Terry Pratchett book The Wee Free Men
Source: The Wee Free Men
“That woman doesn't have the sense God gave a retarded flea.”
Nora Roberts (1950) American romance writer
Source: Black Rose
Christine de Pizan book The Book of the City of Ladies
Cellui ou celle en qui plus a vertus est le plus hault, ne la haulteur ou abbaisement des gens ne gist mie es corps selon le sexe mais en la perfeccion des meurs et des vertus.
Part I, ch. 9, p. 24.
Le Livre de la Cité des Dames (c. 1405)
Source: The Book of the City of Ladies
Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815–1902) Suffragist and Women's Rights activist
Letter to Susan B. Anthony (1860-06-14).
Context: Women's degradation is in man's idea of his sexual rights. Our religion, laws, customs, are all founded on the belief that woman was made for man. Come what will, my whole soul rejoices in the truth that I have uttered.
“There is no wholly masculine man, no purely feminine woman.”
Margaret Fuller (1810–1850) American feminist, poet, author, and activist
Virginia Woolf book A Room of One's Own
Very often misquoted as "For most of history, Anonymous was a woman."
Variant: Anon, who wrote so many poems without signing them, was often a woman.
Source: A Room of One's Own (1929), Ch. 3, p. 51
“No woman wants to be in submission to a man who isn't in submission to God!”
T.D. Jakes (1957) American bishop
“High heels were invented by a woman who had been kissed on the forehead.”
Christopher Morley (1890–1957) American journalist, novelist, essayist and poet
Cassandra Clare book City of Glass
Isabelle and Jace, pg. 534
Source: The Mortal Instruments, City of Glass (2009)
Context: "I think it's strawberry juice," Isabelle said. "Anyway, it's yummy. Jace?" She offered him the glass.
"I am a man," he told her, "and men do not consume pink beverages. Get thee gone, woman, and bring me something brown."
"Brown?" Isabelle made a face.
"Brown is a manly color."
“No woman gets an orgasm from shining the kitchen floor.”
Betty Friedan (1921–2006) American activist
“Behind every successful man is a woman, behind her is his wife.”
Groucho Marx (1890–1977) American comedian
“I really don't advise a woman who wants to have things her own way to get married”
Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) English writer
“She's beautiful, and therefore to be woo'd;
She is a woman, therefore to be won.”
William Shakespeare Henry VI, Part 1
Suffolk, Act V, scene iii.
Source: Henry VI, Part 1 (1592)