The deepest tenderness a woman can show to a man, is to help him to do his duty.
—Dinah Craik (1826–87) British Novelist, Essayist, Poet
All men who avoid female society have dull perceptions and are stupid, or else have gross tastes, and revolt against what is pure.
—William Makepeace Thackeray (1811–63) English Novelist
O woman! in our hours of ease, uncertain, coy, and hard to please, and variable as the shade, by the light quivering aspen made; when pain and anguish wring the brow, a ministering angel thou.
—Walter Scott (1771–1832) Scottish Novelist, Poet, Playwright, Lawyer
A woman is more desirous of entering the state of matrimony than a man.
—The Talmud Sacred Text of the Jewish Faith
A handsome woman is a jewel; a good woman is a treasure.
—Sa’Di (Musharrif Od-Din Muslih Od-Din) (c.1213–91) Persian Poet
They often say woman cannot keep a secret, but every woman in the world, like every man, has a hundred secrets in her own soul which she hides from even herself. The more respectable she is, the more certain it is the secrets exist.
—Austin O’Malley (1858–1932) American Aphorist, Ophthalmologist
Love, which is only an episode in the life of a man, is the entire history of woman’s life.
—Anne Louise Germaine de Stael (1766–1817) French Woman of Letters
God has placed the genius of women in their hearts; because the works of this genius are always works of love.
—Alphonse de Lamartine (1790–1869) French Poet, Politician, Historian
Woman’s honor is nice as ermine; it will not bear a soil.
—John Dryden (1631–1700) English Poet, Literary Critic, Playwright
The foundation of domestic happiness is faith in the virtue of woman.
—Walter Savage Landor (1775–1864) English Writer, Poet
The best woman has always somewhat of a man’s strength; and the noblest man of a woman’s gentleness.
—Dinah Craik (1826–87) British Novelist, Essayist, 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
A woman’s greatest glory is to be little talked about by men, whether for good or ill.
—Pericles (c.490–429 BCE) Athenian Statesman, General
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
The greater part of what women write about women is mere sycophancy to man.
—Anne Louise Germaine de Stael (1766–1817) French Woman of Letters
The buckling on of the knight’s armor by his lady’s hand was not a mere caprice of romantic fashion. It is the type of an eternal truth that the soul’s armor is never well set to the heart unless a woman’s hand has braced it, and it is only when she braces it loosely that the honor of manhood fails.
—John Ruskin (1819–1900) English Writer, Art Critic
Men are women’s playthings; woman is the devil’s.
—Victor Hugo (1802–85) French Novelist
She is not made to be the admiration of all, but the happiness of one.
—Edmund Burke (1729–97) British Philosopher, Statesman
Women’s thoughts are ever turned apon appearing amiable to the other sex; they talk and move and smile with a design upon us; every feature of their faces, every part of their dress, is filled with snares and allurements. There would be no such animals as prudes or coquettes in the world were there not such an animal as man.
—Joseph Addison (1672–1719) English Essayist, Poet, Playwright, Politician
All the reasonings of men are not worth one sentiment of women.
—Voltaire (1694–1778) French Philosopher, Author
The happiest women, like the happiest nations, have no history.
—George Eliot (Mary Anne Evans) (1819–80) English Novelist
Woman, reduces us all to a common denominator.
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish Playwright
Men have sight; women insight.
—Victor Hugo (1802–85) French Novelist
The society of women is the element of good manners.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) German Poet
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
When I see the elaborate study and ingenuity displayed by women in the pursuit of trifles, I feel no doubt of their capacity for the most herculean undertakings.
—Julia Ward Howe (1819–1910) American Feminist, Reformer, Writer
Honor to women! they twine and weave the roses of heaven into the life of man; it is they that unite us in the fascinating bonds of love; and, concealed in the modest veil of the graces, they cherish carefully the external fire of delicate feeling with holy hands.
—Friedrich Schiller (1759–1805) German Poet, Dramatist
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 are the books, the arts, the academies, that show, contain, and nourish all the world.
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616) British Playwright
Let men say what they will; according to the experience I have learned, I require in married women the economical virtue above all other virtues.
—Thomas Fuller (1608–61) English Cleric, Historian
Leave a Reply