Between men and women there is no friendship possible. There is passion, enmity, worship, love, but no friendship.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright
A good cigar is as great a comfort to a man as a good cry is to a woman.
—Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton (1803–73) British Novelist, Poet, Politician
For the woman, the man is a means: the end is always the child.
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German Philosopher, Scholar, Writer
There are certainly are not so many men of large fortune in the world as there are of pretty woman to deserve them.
—Jane Austen (1775–1817) English Novelist
In the sex-war thoughtlessness is the weapon of the male, vindictiveness of the female.
—Cyril Connolly (1903–74) British Literary Critic, Writer
A woman should say: “Have I made him happy? Is he satisfied? Does he love me more than he loved me before? Is he likely to go to bed with another woman?” If he does, then it’s the wife’s fault because she is not trying to make him happy.
—Barbara Cartland (1901–2000) English Popular Romantic Novelist
The great majority of men, especially in France, both desire and possess a fashionable woman, much in the way one might own a fine horse—as a luxury befitting a young man.
—Stendhal (Marie-Henri Beyle) (1783–1842) French Writer
But as to women, who can penetrate the real sufferings of their she condition? Man’s very sympathy with their estate has much of selfishness and more suspicion. Their love, their virtue, beauty, education, but form good housekeepers, to breed a nation.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron) (1788–1824) English Romantic Poet
A man can be happy with any woman, as long as he does not love her.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright
If the wife sins, the husband is not innocent.
—Italian Proverb
The woman who is known only through a man is known wrong.
—Henry Adams (1838–1918) American Historian, Man of Letters
Once women begin to question the inevitability of their subordination and to reject the conventions formerly associated with it, they can no longer retreat to the safety of those conventions. The woman who rejects the stereotype of feminine weakness and dependence can no longer find much comfort in the cliche that all men are beasts. She has no choice except to believe, on the contrary, that men are human beings, and she finds it hard to forgive them when they act like animals.
—Christopher Lasch (1932–94) American Historian, Moralist, Social Critic
Men who do not make advances to women are apt to become victims to women who make advances to them.
—Walter Bagehot (1826–77) English Economist, Journalist
There is no kind of harassment that a man may not inflict on a woman with impunity in civilized societies.
—Denis Diderot (1713–84) French Philosopher, Writer
As vivacity is the gift of women, gravity is that of men.
—Joseph Addison (1672–1719) English Essayist, Poet, Playwright, Politician
Where women love each other, men learn to smother their mutual dislike.
—George Eliot (Mary Anne Evans) (1819–80) English Novelist
The cocks may crow, but it’s the hen that lays the egg.
—Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) British Head of State
A man of sense only trifles with them, plays with them, humors and flatters them, as he does with a sprightly and forward child; but he neither consults them about, nor trusts them with, serious matters.
—Earl of Chesterfield (1694–1773) English Statesman, Man of Letters
And when a woman’s will is as strong as the man’s who wants to govern her, half her strength must be concealment.
—George Eliot (Mary Anne Evans) (1819–80) English Novelist
Why are women so much more interesting to men than men are to women?
—Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) English Novelist
Friends are generally of the same sex, for when men and women agree, it is only in the conclusions; their reasons are always different.
—George Santayana (1863–1952) Spanish-American Poet, Philosopher
Women love us for our defects. If we have enough of them, they will forgive us everything, even our gigantic intellects.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright
The great renewal of the world will perhaps consist in this, that man and maid, freed of all false feelings and reluctances, will seek each other not as opposites, but as brother and sister, as neighbors, and will come together as human beings.
—Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926) Austrian Poet
Girls we love for what they are; men for what they promise to be.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) German Poet
Women have served all these centuries as looking-glasses possessing the magic and delicious power of reflecting the figure of man at twice its natural size.
—Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) English Novelist
With men he can be rational and unaffected, but when he has ladies to please, every feature works.
—Jane Austen (1775–1817) English Novelist
While farmers generally allow one rooster for ten hens, ten men are scarcely sufficient to service one woman.
—Giovanni Boccaccio (1313–1375) Italian Writer, Poet
Leave a Reply