God created the flirt as soon as he made the fool.
—Victor Hugo (1802–85) French Novelist
When men and woman die, as poets sung, his heart’s the last part moves, her last, the tongue.
—Benjamin Franklin (1706–90) American Political Leader, Inventor, Diplomat
Men naturally resent it when women take greater liberties in dress than men are allowed.
—Michael Korda (b.1933) English-born Writer, Novelist
She plucked from my lapel the invisible strand of lint (the universal act of woman to proclaim ownership).
—O. Henry (William Sydney Porter) (1862–1910) American Writer of Short Stories
Male bashing is everywhere. It would be a mistake to view the current situation as another skirmish in the war between the sexes. Women have been doing the shooting, and men have been burying their heads in the sand, hoping the bullets will miss.
—Warren Farrell (b.1943) American Educator, Activist
We have progressively improved into a less spiritual species of tenderness—but the seal is not yet fixed though the wax is preparing for the impression.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron) (1788–1824) English Romantic Poet
If women were as fastidious as men, morally or physically, there would be an end of the race.
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish Playwright
So it is naturally with the male and the female; the one is superior, the other inferior; the one governs, the other is governed; and the same rule must necessarily hold good with respect to all mankind.
—Aristotle (384BCE–322BCE) Ancient Greek Philosopher, Scholar
As vivacity is the gift of women, gravity is that of men.
—Joseph Addison (1672–1719) English Essayist, Poet, Playwright, Politician
Whether women are better than men I cannot say – but I can say they are certainly no worse.
—Golda Meir (1898–1978) Israeli Head of State
The pretty fellows you speak of, I own entertain me sometimes, but is it impossible to be diverted with what one despises? I can laugh at a puppet show, at the same time I know there is nothing in it worth my attention or regard.
—Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1689–1762) English Aristocrat, Poet, Novelist, Writer
The cruelest thing a man can do to a woman is to portray her as perfection.
—D. H. Lawrence (1885–1930) English Novelist, Playwright, Poet, Essayist, Critic
Men and women, women and men; it will never work.
—Erica Jong (b.1942) American Novelist, Feminist
She even had a kind of special position among men: she was an exception, she fitted none of the categories they commonly used when talking about girls; she wasn’t a cock-teaser, a cold fish, an easy lay or a sneaky bitch; she was an honorary person. She had grown to share their contempt for most women.
—Margaret Atwood (b.1939) Canadian Writer, Poet, Critic
Women have got to make the world safe for men since men have made it so darned unsafe for women.
—Nancy Astor, Viscountess Astor (1879–1964) British Politician, Socialite
Let us treat the men and women well: treat them as if they were real: perhaps they are.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
Universal manhood suffrage, by establishing an aristocracy of sex, imposes upon the women of this nation a more absolute and cruel despotism than monarchy; in that, woman finds a political master in her father, husband, brother, son. The aristocracies of the old world are based upon birth, wealth, refinement, education, nobility, brave deeds of chivalry; in this nation, on sex alone; exalting brute force above moral power, vice above virtue, ignorance above education, and the son above the mother who bore him.
—Susan B. Anthony (1820–1906) American Civil Rights Leader
A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle.
—Gloria Steinem (b.1934) American Feminist, Journalist, Activist, Political Advocate
It would be a thousand pities if women wrote like men, or lived like men, or looked like men, for if two sexes are quite inadequate, considering the vastness and variety of the world, how should we manage with one only? Ought not education to bring out and fortify the differences rather than the similarities? For we have too much likeness as it is, and if an explorer should come back and bring word of other sexes looking through the branches of other trees at other skies, nothing would be of greater service to humanity; and we should have the immense pleasure into the bargain of watching Professor X rush for his measuring-rods to prove himself “superior.”
—Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) English Novelist
Man is always looking for someone to boast to; woman is always looking for a shoulder to put her head on.
—H. L. Mencken (1880–1956) American Journalist, Literary Critic
A man can be happy with any woman, as long as he does not love her.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright
Man made one grave mistake: in answer to vaguely reformist and humanitarian agitation he admitted women to politics and the professions. The conservatives who saw this as the undermining of our civilization and the end of the state and marriage were right after all; it is time for the demolition to begin.
—Germaine Greer (b.1939) Australia Academic, Journalist, Scholar, Writer
A true gentleman is at a disadvantage in dealing with women. Women are realist, and their tactics are realistic, so no man should be a gentleman where women are concerned unless the women are very, very young. Women admire gentlemen, and sleep with cads.
—Louis L’Amour (1908–88) American Novelist, Short-Story Writer
Women and cats will do as they please, and men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea.
—Robert A. Heinlein (1907–88) American Science Fiction Writer
Perhaps women have always been in closer contact with reality than men: it would seem to be the just recompense for being deprived of idealism.
—Germaine Greer (b.1939) Australia Academic, Journalist, Scholar, Writer
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
For a man to strike any women is most brutal, and I, as well as everyone else, think this far worse than any attempt to shoot, which, wicked as it is, is at least more comprehensible and more courageous.
—Queen Victoria (1819–1901) British Royal
Men get to be a mixture of the charming mannerisms of the women they have known.
—Unknown
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife. However little known the feelings or views of such a man may be on his first entering a neighbourhood, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of the surrounding families, that he is considered as the rightful property of someone or other of their daughters.
—Jane Austen (1775–1817) English Novelist
Every theory of love, from Plato down teaches that each individual loves in the other sex what he lacks in himself.
—G. Stanley Hall (1844–1924) American Psychologist
Leave a Reply