Why are women ... so much more interesting to men than men are to women? Virginia Woolf
A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction. Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own, 1929
Women have served all these centuries as looking-glasses possessing the magic and delicious power of reflecting the figure of a man at twice its natural size. ibid.
For most of history, Anonymous was a woman. Virginia Woolf
The truth is, I often like women. I like their unconventionality. I like their completeness. I like their anonymity. Virginia Woolf
The freedom women were supposed to have found in the Sixties largely boiled down to easy contraception and abortion: things to make life easier for men in fact. Julia Burchill
O! how short a time does it take to put an end to a woman’s liberty! Fanny Burney, English novelist & diarist
Poor woman. I shall support her as long as I can. Because she is a woman, and because I hate her husband. Jane Austen, re George & Caroline
She was a woman of mean understanding, little information, and uncertain temper. Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice
Loss of virtue in a female is irretrievable ... One false step involved her in endless ruin. ibid.
Give a girl an education and introduce her properly into the world, and ten to one but she has the means of settling well, without further expense to anybody. Jane Austen
‘I do not think I ever opened a book in my life which had not something to say upon woman’s inconstancy. Songs and proverbs, all talk of woman’s fickleness. But perhaps you will say, these were all written by men.’
Perhaps I shall. Yes, yes, if you please, no reference to examples in books. Men have had every advantage of us in telling their own story. Education has been theirs in so much higher a degree; the pen has been in their hands. I will not allow books to prove anything.’ Jane Austen, Persuasion
I hate to hear you talk about all women as if they were fine ladies instead of rational creatures. None of us want to be in calm waters all our lives. ibid.
But for the most part, women are not educated as they should be, I mean those of quality; oft their education is only to dance, sing, and fiddle, to write complimental letters, to read romances, to speak some languages that is not their native ... their parents take more care of their feet than their head, more of their words than their reason. Margaret Cavendish, 1624-1674, Duchess of Newcastle
In the new code of laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make I desire you would remember the ladies, and be more generous and favourable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the husbands. Remember all men would be tyrants if they could. Abigail Adams. 1744-1818, wife of John Adams & mother of John Quincy Adams
What a misfortune it is to be born a woman! … Why seek for knowledge, which can prove only that our wretchedness is irremediable? If a ray of light break in upon us, it is but to make darkness more visible; to show us the new limits, the Gothic structure, the impenetrable barriers of our prison. Maria Edgeworth, Leonora, 1806
It is humbling to reflect, that in those countries in which the fondness for the mere persons of women is carried to the highest excess, they are slaves; and that their moral and intellectual degradation increases in direct proportion to the adoration which is paid to mere external charms. Hannah More, 1745-1833
The Englishwoman is so refined
She has no bosom and no behind. Stevie Smith, The Englishwoman, 1937
It may be that the sensation of being a woman presents another emphasis in art, and particularly in terms of sculpture, for there is a whole range of perception belonging to feminine experience. So many ideas spring from an inside response to form. Barbara Hepworth
I’ve fought three duels over ladies. I’ve walked out on twelve ladies. Nine ladies have walked out on me. Oh I used to be an idiot. Got crushes on them, whispered sweet nothings, clicked my heels, bowed and scraped, fell in love, suffered, sighed in the moonlight, froze up, melted in puddles ... Dark eyes, red lips, dimples in the cheeks ... All women are pretentious, affected, hateful, gossipy liars to the marrow of their bones. Vain, petty, merciless, they can’t think straight ... Pure crocodile. Chekhov: Comedy Shorts: The Bear starring Julian Barratt & Julia David & Reece Shearsmith, Sky Arts 2010
Women can’t forgive failure. Anton Chekhov, The Seagull
When a woman isn’t beautiful, people always say,
‘You have lovely eyes, you have lovely hair.’ Anton Chekhov, Uncle Vanya
Women deprived of the company of men pine, men deprived of the company of women become stupid. Anton Chekhov, notebooks
How are we fallen! Fallen by mistaken rules,
And education’s, more than nature’s, fools;
Debarred from all improvements of the mind,
And to be dull, expected and designed. Anne Finch, The Introduction, 1913
The life and loves of a she-devil. Fay Weldon, novel 1984
Half the sorrows of women would be averted if they could repress the speech they know to be useless; nay, the speech they have resolved not to make. George Eliot, Felix Holt
A little daily embroidery had been a constant element in Mrs Transcome’s life; that soothing occupation of taking stitches to produce what neither she nor any one else wanted, was then the resource of many a well-born and unhappy woman. ibid.
A woman can hardly ever choose … She is dependent on what happens to her. She must take meaner things, because only meaner things are within her reach. ibid.
Many Theresas have been born who found for themselves no epic life wherein there was a constant unfolding of far-resonant action; perhaps only a life of mistakes, the offspring of a certain spiritual grandeur ill-matched with the meanness of opportunity; perhaps a tragic failure which found no secret poet and sank unwept into oblivion. George Eliot, Middlemarch
A woman dictates before marriage in order that she may have an appetite for submission afterwards. ibid.
A woman, let her be as good as she may, has got to put up with the life her husband makes for her. ibid.
The happiest woman, like the happiest nations, have no history. George Eliot, The Mill on the Floss
I should like to know what is the proper function of women, if it is not to make reasons for husbands to stay at home, and still stronger reasons for bachelors to go out. ibid.
A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle. Gloria Steinem, attributed
A feminist is anyone who recognizes the equality and full humanity of women and men. Gloria Steinem
Any woman who chooses to behave like a full human being should be warned that the armies of the status quo will treat her as something of a dirty joke ... She will need her sisterhood. Gloria Steinem
Women may be the one group that grows more radical with age. Gloria Steinem
Most women are one man away from welfare. Gloria Steinem
This is no simple reform. It really is a revolution. Sex and race because they are easy and visible differences have been the primary ways of organizing human beings into superior and inferior groups and into the cheap labor on which this system still depends. We are talking about a society in which there will be no roles other than those chosen or those earned. We are really talking about humanism. Gloria Steinem
And she for him had given
Her all on earth, and more than all in heaven! Lord Byron, The Corsair
A woman who gives any advantage to a man may expect a lover but will sooner or later find a tyrant. Lord Byron