Sex can be fun after eighty, after ninety, and after lunch!
—George Burns (1896–1996) American Comedian
It is illegal in England to state in print that a wife can and should derive sexual pleasure from intercourse
—Bertrand A. Russell (1872–1970) British Philosopher, Mathematician, Social Critic
The pleasure of living and the pleasure of the orgasm are identical. Extreme orgasm anxiety forms the basis of the general fear of life.
—Wilhelm Reich (1897–1957) Austrian Psychoanalyst
Sex lies at the root of life, and we can never learn to reverence life until we know how to understand sex.
—Havelock Ellis (1859–1939) British Sexologist, Physician, Social Reformer
Because her instinct has told her, or because she has been reliably informed, the faded virgin knows that the supreme joys are not for her; she knows by a process of the intellect; but she can feel her deprivation no more than the young mother can feel the hardship of the virgin’s lot.
—Arnold Bennett (1867–1931) British Novelist, Playwright, Critic
There comes a moment in the day when you have written your pages in the morning, attended to your correspondence in the afternoon, and have nothing further to do. Then comes that hour when you are bored; that’s the time for sex.
—H. G. Wells (1866–1946) English Novelist, Historian, Social Thinker
Sex at age ninety is like trying to shoot pool with a rope.
—George Burns (1896–1996) American Comedian
Sexual love is undoubtedly one of the chief things in life, and the union of mental and bodily satisfaction in the enjoyment of love is one of its culminating peaks. Apart from a few queer fanatics, all the world knows this and conducts its life accordingly; science alone is too delicate to admit it.
—Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) Austrian Psychiatrist, Psychoanalytic
The orgasm has replaced the Cross as the focus of longing and the image of fulfillment.
—Malcolm Muggeridge (1903–90) English Journalist, Author, Media Personality, Satirist
Sex without love is merely healthy exercise.
—Robert A. Heinlein (1907–88) American Science Fiction Writer
Of all the sexual aberrations, chastity is the strangest.
—Anatole France (1844–1924) French Novelist
In libertinage, nothing is frightful, because everything libertinage suggests is also a natural inspiration; the most extraordinary, the most bizarre acts, those which most arrantly seem to conflict with every law, every human institution… even those that are not frightful, and there is not one amongst them all that cannot be demonstrated within the boundaries of nature.
—Marquis de Sade (1740–1814) French Political leader, Revolutionary, Novelist, Poet, Critic
Frigidity is desire imagined by a woman who doesn’t desire the man offering himself to her. It’s the desire of a woman for a man who hasn’t yet come to her, whom she doesn’t yet know. She’s faithful to this stranger even before she belongs to him. Frigidity is the non-desire for whatever is not him.
—Marguerite Duras (1914–96) French Novelist, Playwright
The more developed sexual passion, in both sexes, is very largely an emotion of power, domination, or appropriation. There is no state of feeling that says “mine, mine,” more fiercely.
—Charles Cooley (1864–1929) American Sociologist
Frigidity is largely nonsense. It is this generation’s catchword, one only vaguely understood and constantly misused. Frigid women are few. There is a host of diffident and slow-ripening ones.
—Phyllis McGinley (1905–78) American Children’s Books Writer, Poet, Writer of Children’s Books
Everyone probably thinks that I’m a raving nymphomaniac, that I have an insatiable sexual appetite, when the truth is I’d rather read a book.
—Madonna (b.1958) American Pop Singer, Actress
Sex is the biggest nothing of all time
—Andy Warhol (1928–87) American Painter, Printmaker, Film Personality
I have urged on woman independence of man, not that I do not think the sexes mutually needed by one another, but because in woman this fact has led to an excessive devotion, which has cooled love, degraded marriage and prevented it her sex from being what it should be to itself or the other. I wish woman to live, first for God’s sake. Then she will not take what is not fit for her from a sense of weakness and poverty. Then if she finds what she needs in man embodied, she will know how to love and be worthy of being loved.
—Margaret Fuller (1810–50) American Feminist, Writer, Revolutionary
For once you must try not to shirk the facts: mankind is kept alive by bestial acts.
—Bertolt Brecht (1898–1956) German Poet, Playwright, Theater Personality
Sex. In America an obsession. In other parts of the world a fact.
—Marlene Dietrich (1901–92) German-American Film Actress, Cabaret Performer
Whoever named it necking is a poor judge of anatomy.
—Groucho Marx (1890–1977) American Actor, Comedian, Singer
No man can call himself liberal, or radical, or even a conservative advocate of fair play, if his work depends in any way on the unpaid or underpaid labor of women at home, or in the office.
—Gloria Steinem (b.1934) American Feminist, Journalist, Social Activist, Political Activist
How deep a wound to morals and social purity has that accursed article of the celibacy of the clergy been! Even the best and most enlightened men in Romanist countries attach a notion of impurity to the marriage of a clergyman. And can such a feeling be without its effect on the estimation of the wedded life in general? Impossible! and the morals of both sexes in Spain, Italy, France, and. prove it abundantly.
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) English Poet, Literary Critic, Philosopher
An intellectual is a person who has discovered something more interesting than sex.
—Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) English Humanist, Pacifist, Essayist, Short Story Writer, Satirist
Civilized people cannot fully satisfy their sexual instinct without love
—Bertrand A. Russell (1872–1970) British Philosopher, Mathematician, Social Critic
Sex is one of the nine reasons for reincarnation. The other eight are unimportant.
—Henry Miller (1891–1980) American Novelist
The ability to make love frivolously is the chief characteristic which distinguishes human beings from the beasts.
—Heywood Hale Broun (1918–2001) American Journalist, Commentator, Actor
Eroticism is assenting to life even in death.
—Georges Bataille (1897–1962) French Essayist, Intellectual
Sex is like snow; you never know how many inches you are going to get or how long it is going to last.
—Anonymous
Sex is the ersatz or substitute religion of the 20th Century
—Malcolm Muggeridge (1903–90) English Journalist, Author, Media Personality, Satirist