Men are like the earth and we are the moon; we turn always one side to them, and they think there is no other, because they don’t see it—but there is.
—Olive Schreiner (1855–1920) South African Writer, Feminist
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
Nature has not placed us in an inferior rank to men, no more than the females of other animals, where we see no distinction of capacity, though I am persuaded if there was a commonwealth of rational horses… it would be an established maxim amongst them that a mare could not be taught to pace.
—Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1689–1762) English Aristocrat, Poet, Novelist, Writer
I have always been principally interested in men for sex. I’ve always thought any sane woman would be a lover of women because loving men is such a mess. I have always wished I’d fall in love with a woman. Damn.
—Germaine Greer (b.1939) Australia Academic, Journalist, Scholar, Writer
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
A man can be happy with any woman, as long as he does not love her.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright
Men get to be a mixture of the charming mannerisms of the women they have known.
—Unknown
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
Men and women are made for each other, but their mutual dependence differs in degrees; man is dependent on woman through his desires; woman is dependent on man through her desires and also through her needs; he could do without her better than she can do without him. She cannot fulfill her purpose in life without his aid, without his goodwill, without his respect…..Nature herself has decreed that woman, both for herself and her children, should be at the mercy of man s judgment.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–78) Swiss-born French Philosopher
Please know I am quite aware of the hazards. I want to do it because I want to do it. Women must try to do things as men have tried. When they fail, their failure must be but a challenge to others.
—Amelia Earhart (1897–1937) American Aviator
The amount of women in London who flirt with their own husbands is perfectly scandalous. It looks so bad. It is simply washing one’s clean linen in public.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright
Man dreams of fame while woman wakes to love.
—Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–92) British Poet
If ever a man and his wife, or a man and his mistress, who pass nights as well as days together, absolutely lay aside all good breeding, their intimacy will soon degenerate into a coarse familiarity, infallibly productive of contempt or disgust.
—Earl of Chesterfield (1694–1773) English Statesman, Man of Letters
If one could be friendly with women, what a pleasure—the relationship so secret and private compared with relations with men. Why not write about it truthfully?
—Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) English Novelist
The source of all life and knowledge is in man and woman, and the source of all living is in the interchange and the meeting and mingling of these two: man-life and woman-life, man-knowledge and woman-knowledge, man-being and woman-being.
—D. H. Lawrence (1885–1930) English Novelist, Playwright, Poet, Essayist, Literary Critic
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
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
I should like to know what is the proper function of women, if it is not to make reasons for husbands to stay at home, and still stronger reasons for bachelors to go out.
—George Eliot (Mary Anne Evans) (1819–80) English Novelist
You can get your appetite elsewhere, as long as you eat at home.
—Anonymous
Girls we love for what they are; men for what they promise to be.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) German Poet
All your words are but to say: you are a woman, and your part is in the house. But when the men have died in battle and honour, you have leave to be burned in the house, for the men will need it no more. But I am of the House of Eorl and not a serving-woman. I can ride and wield blade, and I do not fear either pain or death.
—J. R. R. Tolkien (1892–1973) British Scholar, Author
There are always women who will take men on their own terms. If I were a man I wouldn’t bother to change while there are women like that around.
—Ann Oakley (b.1944) English Sociologist, Writer, Feminist
Women serve but to keep a man from better company.
—William Wycherley (c.1640–1716) English Dramatist
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
I tell you there isn’t a thing under the sun that needs to be done at all, but what a man can do better than a woman, unless it’s bearing children, and they do that in a poor make-shift way; it had better ha been left to the men.
—George Eliot (Mary Anne Evans) (1819–80) English Novelist
He is half of a blessed man. Left to be finished by such as she; and she a fair divided excellence, whose fullness of perfection lies in him.
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616) British Playwright
The female of the genus homo is economically dependent on the male. He is her food supply.
—Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860–1935) American Feminist, Writer
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
The woman is the home. That’s where she used to be, and that’s where she still is. You might ask me, What if a man tries to be part of the home—will the woman let him? I answer yes. Because then he becomes one of the children.
—Marguerite Duras (1914–96) French Novelist, Playwright
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
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