Women Quotes
This is a large page and a mixed one. Feminist theory, nineteenth-century verse, comedy and plain contempt sit side by side, and the source line is how you tell them apart. Warren Farrell has the most entries, then Shakespeare, Camille Paglia and Mignon McLaughlin.
Some of the best-sourced entries are the plainest. Betty Friedan, in The Feminine Mystique (1963): “The problem lay buried, unspoken for many years in the minds of American women.” Shulamith Firestone, in The Dialectic of Sex (1970), argued that women and love are underpinnings, and that examining them threatens the whole structure of a culture. Dorothy Parker, in Enough Rope (1926), observed that men seldom make passes at girls who wear glasses.
Two statements that are regularly credited to Catharine MacKinnon are flagged here as misattributed. If you are checking one of them, the notes on its page are the place to start.
The understanding of women is keener and more quick than that of men.
The desire of the man is for the woman, but the desire of the woman is for the desire of the man.
Don’t you think that the irresponsible behavior of men is caused by women?
There is only one woman in the world. One woman, with many faces.
All the reasoning of man is not worth one sentiment of woman.
The story of the human race is the story of men and women selling themselves short.
The desire to please is born in woman before the desire to love.
It is the opinion of men that makes the reputation of women.
A woman of honor should never suspect another of things she would not do herself.