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.
Women shouldn't have character… they should be like pretty chocolate boxes.
A Woman never commands a Man, unless he be a Fool, but by her Obedience.
A woman knows by intuition, or instinct, what is best for herself.
If we are to use women for the same things as the men, we must also teach them the same things.
There has to be a woman, but not much of a one. A good horse is much more important.
Small nations are like indecently dressed women. They tempt the evil-minded.
Women have the understanding of the heart, which is better than that of the head.
A man defines his standing at the court of chastity by his views of women.