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What mighty ills have not been done by woman!
Who was ’t betrayed the Capitol?—A woman!
Who lost Mark Antony the world?—A woman!
Who was the cause of a long ten years’ war,
And laid at last old Troy in ashes?—Woman!
Destructive, damnable, deceitful woman!

— Thomas Otway The Orphan (1680)

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Source and credibility

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Source: The Orphan (1680), Act iii. Sc. 1. Compare: "O woman, woman! when to ill thy mind/ Is bent, all hell contains no fouler fiend", Alexander Pope, Homer’s Odyssey, book xi., line 531.
Work: The Orphan, 1680
Source quality: Precise citation Points to a specific work with a page, chapter, date or similar locator, so you can look it up.

More by Thomas Otway

Who can describe
Women's hypocrisies! their subtle wiles,
Betraying smiles, feign'd tears, inconstancies!
Their painted outsides, and corrupted minds,
The sum of all their follies, and their falsehoods.

The Orphan (1680)

O woman! lovely woman! Nature made thee
To temper man: we had been brutes without you.
Angels are painted fair, to look like you:
There ’s in you all that we believe of heaven,—
Amazing brightness, purity, and truth,
Eternal joy, and everlasting love.

Venice Preserv'd (1682)

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Topics

Women

More quotes by Thomas Otway

Let us embrace, and from this very moment vow an eternal misery together.

The Orphan (1680)

Give but an Englishman his whore and ease,
Beef and a sea-coal fire, he's yours forever.

Venice Preserv'd (1682)

Dear as the vital warmth that feeds my life;
Dear as these eyes, that weep in fondness o’er thee.

Venice Preserv'd (1682)

Honesty needs no disguise nor ornament; be plain.

If we must part forever,
Give me but one kind word to think upon,
And please myself with, while my heart's breaking.

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Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Thomas Otway (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.