A handsome woman who has the qualities of an agreeable man is the most delicious society in the world. She unites the merit of both sexes. Caprice is in the women the antidote to beauty.
—Jean de La Bruyere (1645–96) French Satiric Moralist, Author
The thing needed … to raise women (and to raise men too) is these friendships without love between men and women. And if between married men and married women, all the better.
—Florence Nightingale (1820–1910) English Nurse
Women are ever in extremes; they are either better or worse than men.
—Jean de La Bruyere (1645–96) French Satiric Moralist, Author
Women have more heart and more imagination than men.
—Alphonse de Lamartine (1790–1869) French Poet, Politician, Historian
A good and true woman is said to resemble a Cremona fiddle—age but increases its worth and sweetens its tone.
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809–94) American Physician, Essayist
Modern woman can not get away from love. She is no new woman.
—Benito Mussolini (1883–1945) Italian Head of State, Politician
For a silence and a chaste reserve is genuine praise, and to remain quiet within the house.
—Euripides (480–406 BCE) Ancient Greek Dramatist
I have often thought that the nature of women was inferior to that of men in general, but superior in particular.
—George Greville, 2nd Earl of Warwick (1746–1816) British Nobleman, Politician
Women are the books, the arts, the academies, that show, contain, and nourish all the world.
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616) British Playwright
A woman too often reasons from her heart; hence two-thirds of her mistakes and her troubles.
—Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton (1803–73) British Novelist, Poet, Politician
Most females will forgive a liberty, rather than a slight; and if any woman were to hang a man for stealing her picture, although it were set in gold, it would be a new case in law; but if he carried off the setting, and left the portrait, I would not answer for his safety.
—Charles Caleb Colton (c.1780–1832) English Clergyman, Aphorist
O woman! in ordinary cases so mere a mortal, how in the great and rare events of life dost thou swell into the angel!
—Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton (1803–73) British Novelist, Poet, Politician
There are only two kinds of women, the plain and the colored.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright
The position of women has no fixed relation to the general level of culture. It has been higher in the remote past than in recent times, and amongst savages it is by no means uniformly low.
—Leonard Hobhouse (1864–1929) English Social Philosopher, Journalist
The foundation of domestic happiness is faith in the virtue of woman.
—Walter Savage Landor (1775–1864) English Writer, Poet
Win and wear her if you can.—She is the most delightful of God’s creatures—Heaven’s best gift—man’s joy and pride in prosperity, and his support and comfort in affliction.
—Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) English Poet, Dramatist, Essayist, Novelist
She is not made to be the admiration of all, but the happiness of one.
—Edmund Burke (1729–97) British Philosopher, Statesman
A woman prefers poverty with the affection of her husband to riches without it.
—The Talmud Sacred Text of the Jewish Faith
A woman is more desirous of entering the state of matrimony than a man.
—The Talmud Sacred Text of the Jewish Faith
Women have more good sense than men. They have fewer pretensions, are less implicated in theories, and judge of objects more from their immediate and involuntary impressions on the mind, and therefore more truly and naturally.
—William Hazlitt (1778–1830) English Essayist
Women are self-denying and uncandid; men are self-indulgent and outspoken; and this is the key to a thousand double misunderstandings, for good women are just as stupid in misunderstanding men as good men are in misunderstanding women.
—Charles Reade (1814–84) English Novelist, Playwright
The world is the book of women. Whatever knowledge they may possess is more commonly acquired by observation than by reading.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–78) Swiss-born French Philosopher
Women never truly command, till they have given their promise to obey; and they are never in more danger of being made slaves, than when the men are at their feet.
—George Farquhar (1677–1707) Irish Dramatist
There is a vein of inconsistency in every woman’s heart, within whose portals love hath entered.
—Dorothee Luzy Dotinville (1747–1830) French Dancer, Actress
Men have sight; women insight.
—Victor Hugo (1802–85) French Novelist
No one knows like a woman how to say things which are at once gentle and deep.
—Victor Hugo (1802–85) French Novelist
The most dangerous acquaintance a married woman can make is the female confidante.
—Dorothee Luzy Dotinville (1747–1830) French Dancer, Actress
As the vine which has long twined its graceful foliage about the oak, and been lifted by it in sunshine, will, when the hardy plant is rifted by the thunderbolt, cling round it with its caressing tendrils, and bind up its shattered boughs, so is it beautifully ordered by Providence that woman, who is the mere dependent and ornament of man in his happier hours, should be his stay and solace when smitten with sudden calamity; winding herself into the rugged recesses of his nature, tenderly supporting the drooping head and binding up the broken heart.
—Washington Irving (1783–1859) American Essayist, Biographer, Historian
Earth has nothing more tender than a woman’s heart when it is the abode of piety.
—Martin Luther (1483–1546) German Protestant Theologian
Men at most differ as Heaven and Earth, but women, worst and best, as Heaven and Hell.
—Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–92) British Poet
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