Quotes: Women.

Women
The woman’s job is to hold things together.
Woman 94 “I am a woman and my business is to hold things together.” Fitzgerald, Tender Is the Night.

I want the baby to grow up to be a useful woman.
Woman 169 “The only thing I care about is leaving the baby well placed, and I want her to have a good chance to grow up a useful woman.” Jewett, A Country Doctor.

A good wife keeps her house in order, her husband comfortable and fulfills the social responsibilities that come her way.
Woman 328 Mrs. Fraley: The best service to the public can be done by keeping one’s own house in order and one’s husband comfortable, and by attending to those social responsibilities which come in our way. Jewett, A Country Doctor.

Why should women who don’t marry be considered failures? All women shouldn’t bring up babies; some are failures at it.
Woman 328 Nan: It certainly can’t be the proper vocation of all women to bring up children, so many of them are dead failures at it; and I don’t see why all girls should be thought failures who do not marry. Jewett, A Country Doctor.

Women who have to spend their father’s or their husband’s money should feel that it is their own.
Woman 339 Nan: I think it is only fair that even those who have to spend their husband’s or their father’s money should be made to feel it is their own. Jewett, A Country Doctor.

The fact that there are so many women in civilization means that some are set aside for something beside marriage.
Woman 361 The simple fact that there is a majority of women in any center of civilization means that some are set apart by nature for other uses and conditions than marriage. Jewett, A Country Doctor.

Women are creative and unfathomable to the male artist as artists are to the average person.
Woman 333 Dr. Beatrice Hinkle: Fundamentally the male artist approximates more to the psychology of woman, who, biologically speaking, is a purely creative being and whose personality has been as mysterious and unfathomable to the man as the artist has been to the average person. Hull, ed. The Writer’s Book.

Women can only be understood if one understands the creativity of her nature.
Woman 333 Dr. Beatrice Hinkle: …woman is a being dominated by the creative urge and…no understanding of her as an individual can be gained unless the significance and effects of that great fact can be grasped. Hull, ed. The Writer’s Book.

You felt her influence as you might have felt from Eve after she had just been created.
Woman 647 One felt an influence breathing out of her, such as we might suppose to come from Eve, when she was just made, and her creator brought her to Adam, saying—“Behold, here is a woman!” Hawthorne, The Blithedale Romance.

Definition of an “accomplished” woman.
Woman (accomplished) 39 “[An accomplished woman] must have a thorough knowledge of music, singing, drawing, dancing, and the modern languages, to deserve the word; and besides all this, she must possess a certain something in her air and manner of walking, the tone of her voice, her address and expressions . . . yet add something more substantial, in the improvement of her mind by extensive reading.” Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice.

No woman will ever govern me, a man.
Woman govern 182 Creon: No woman while I live shall govern me. Sophocles. Antigone.

She was what men have made of women over the centuries: simple and innocent.
Women 395 Zenobia observes that the too-simple and too-innocent Priscilla is the perfect example of what men have made of women through the centuries. Mellow, Hawthorne in His Times.

She never had to make any effort to make men fall in love with her.
Women 158 She is one of those girls who need never make the slightest effort to have men fall in love with them. Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise.

Women 158 The education of all beautiful women is the knowledge of men. Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise.

Her beauty ends any criticism of her.
Women 159 But all criticism of Rosalind ends in her beauty. Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise.

She needs to be won again every time you meet her.
Women 167 I have to be won all over again every time you see me. Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise.

Women’s imagination jumps from admiration to love to matrimony in a moment.
Women 27 Darcy: “A lady’s imagination is very rapid; it jumps from admiration to love, from love to matrimony in a moment.” Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice.

The best thing a girl can be in this world is a beautiful little fool.
Women 17 Daisy: All right, I said, I’m glad it’s a girl…I hope she’ll be a fool—that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool. Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby.

Her whole life, vocation and occupation, other than what would be similar to ladies’ bridge parties today, was her lover, Lancelot.
Women 462 Guenever…it was her part to sit at home, though passionate, though real and hungry in her fierce and tender heart…no recognized diversions except what is comparable to the ladies’ bridge party of today…no occupation—except Lancelot. T. H. White, The Once and Future King.

There is always something interesting in every woman that you will not find in any other woman.
Women 127 My rule has been that you can always find something devilishly interesting in every woman that you wouldn’t find in any other. Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov.

Women 177 Never trust a woman’s tears. Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov.

She was a woman who people are surprised is able to get any man to marry her.
Women 20 Mrs. Allen was one of that numerous class of females whose society can raise no other emotion than surprise at there being any men in the world who could like them well enough to marry them. Austen, Northanger Abbey.

Bath was beset by plain-faced women.
Women 141 Sir Walter…hoped she [Mrs. Wallis] might make some amends for the many very plain faces he was continually passing in the streets…worst of Bath was, the number of its plain women…did not mean to say that there were no pretty women, but the number of the plain was out of all proportion…had frequently observed, as he walked, that one handsome face would be followed by thirty, or five and thirty frights; and once, as he had stood in a shop in Bond Street, he had counted eighty-seven women go by, one after another, without there being a tolerable face among them. Austen, Persuasion.

Women are fated not to forget males because they sit home with nothing to do while men are engaged in the world and have other things to think about.
Women 232 We [females] certainly do not forget you [males], so soon as you forget us…perhaps our fate rather than our merit…cannot help ourselves…live at home, quiet, confined and our feelings prey upon us [while] you are forced on exertion…have always a profession, pursuits, business of some sort or other, to take you back into the world immediately, and continual occupation and change soon weaken impressions. Austen, Persuasion.

All the books about women’s inconstancy were written by men.
Women 234 If I had such a memory as Benwick, I could bring you fifty quotations in a moment on my side of the argument, and 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. Austen, Persuasion.

Chivalry would have seemed absurd to the Romans or the Vikings.
Women 64 But this state of utter subjection to the will of an almost unapproachable woman; this belief that no sacrifice was too great, that a whole lifetime might properly be spent in paying court to some exacting lady or suffering on her behalf--this would have seemed to the
Romans or to the Vikings not only absurd but unbelievable. Clark, Civilization.

Women through the centuries have been pictured as either saint or sinner.
Women 245 The picture of the wife going to church and living behind a white picket fence and of the prostitute swilling liquor and servicing the men is the western version of the dichotomy of saint/sinner found in many Christian and pagan cultures. Bradley, Time Present, Time Past.

God created women to tame man.
Women 209 Voltaire: God created woman only to tame mankind. . Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Voltaire.

Women 209 George Meredith: Woman will be the last thing civilized by man. . Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Voltaire.

She was a great man who happened to be a woman.
Women 209 Voltaire on the Marquise du Chatelet with whom he eloped: “a great man whose only fault was being a woman.” . Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Voltaire.

Women have a maternal instinct for helping the helpless.
Women 391 Spencer fears that the maternal instinct for helping the helpless may lead women to favor a paternalistic state. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Herbert Spencer.

There are more women who like to be loved than there are women who love.
Women 416 There’s more women likes to be loved than there is of those that loves. Jewett, The country of the Pointed Firs.

The fate of the professional woman: subordinate to some man who is her inferior.
Women 131 A woman of the highest order of intelligence, entering into the sciences, or into commerce or manufacturing, always finds herself subordinate to some man, and it not infrequently happens that he is her inferior on all rational counts. Mencken, Minority Report.

I curse the fickleness of women.
Women 506 Goatherd: I follow an easier and, in my opinion, a wiser path, which is to curse the fickleness of women, their inconstancy, their double-dealing, their broken promises, their broken faith, and last of all, the lack of judgment they show in their choice of objects for their desires and affections. Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote of La Mancha. Part One: 1605.

Intelligence in a marriageable girl hinders her from being married for all the usual reasons, good looks, vanity and canine affection.
Women 10 Certainly such elements in the character of a marriageable girl tended to interfere with her lot, and hinder it from being decided according to custom, by good looks, vanity, and merely canine affection. George Eliot, Middlemarch.

Men expect their women to show ardent, self-sacrificing affection.
Women 50 Casaubon: The great charm of your sex is its capability of an ardent self-sacrificing affection…. George Eliot, Middlemarch.

Women usually have no choice; they must marry the only man they can get.
Women 513 A woman’s choice usually means taking the only man she can get. George Eliot, Middlemarch.

Women are trained for their only vocation: marriage.
Women 337 We train them [women] from childhood in the affairs of love: their charm, their attire, their knowledge, their language, and all their instruction have only this end in view. Montaigne, Selected Essays.

Men expect women to throw their whole lives into being in love.
Women 953 It is a mistaken idea which men generally entertain that Nature has made women especially prone to throw their whole being into what is technically called love. Hawthorne, The Marble Faun.

Women have only one choice of a career; men have many choices.
Women 683 How can she [a woman] be happy, after discovering that fate has assigned her but one single event, which she must continue to make the substance of her whole life [while] a man has his choice of innumerable events. Hawthorne, The Blithedale Romance.

The world has lost much by not allowing women to speak in public.
Women 737 Zenobia: …injustice which the world did to women, and equally to itself, by not allowing them, in freedom and honor, and with the fullest welcome, their natural utterance in public. Hawthorne, The Blithedale Romance.

Society throttles women.
Women 737 Zenobia: The mistrust and disapproval of the vast bulk of society throttles us [women], as with two gigantic hands at our throats. Hawthorne, The Blithedale Romance.

Men have taken centuries to shape women like Priscilla.
Women 739 Zenobia on Priscilla: She is the type of womanhood, such as man has spent centuries in making it. Hawthorne, The Blithedale Romance.

In not allowing women to fully participate in life, men are denying themselves women’s insight and wisdom.
Women 739 Zenobia: In denying us [women] our rights, he [man] betrays even more blindness to his own interests…. Hawthorne, The Blithedale Romance.

Women’s place is by the side of her man, completely sympathetic, without reservation, unquestioning in her belief in him so that he does not lose faith in himself.
Women 739 Hollingsworth: She [woman] is the most admirable handiwork of God in her true place and character…at man’s side…sympathizer; …unreserved, unquestioning believer…lest man should utterly lose faith in himself…the echo of God’s own voice…. Hawthorne, The Blithedale Romance.

Man is wretched without a woman; but a woman without a man is a monster.
Women 740 Hollingsowrth: Man is a wretch without woman; but woman is a monster…without man as her acknowledged principal! Hawthorne, The Blithedale Romance.

Women who move outside the beaten track are hounded by everyone, including Providence and Destiny.
Women 827 ...that the whole universe, her own sex and yours, and Providence, or Destiny, to boot, make common cause against the woman who swerves one hair’s breadth out of the beaten track. Hawthorne, The Blithedale Romance.

In hours of darkness he will not have the light of my intelligence to guide him.
Women 828 Zenobia: For will he never, in many an hour of darkness, need that proud, intellectual sympathy which he might have had from me--the sympathy that would flash light along his course, and guide as well as cheer him. Hawthorne, The Blithedale Romance.

Men want women to regenerate them, purify them and elevate them.
Women 385 …if I still set a value on life it is only because I still hope one day to meet such a heavenly creature who will regenerate me, purify me and elevate me. Tolstoi, War and Peace.

Women’s principal employment is the toilet and adjusting their hair.
Women 33 Women: The toilet is their great scene of business and the right adjusting of their hair the principal employment of their lives. Addison, 3/12/1711. The Spectator.

Women were created to refine and soften humanity and it is degrading to consider them merely as objects of sight.
Women 100 It is, methinks, a low and degrading idea of that [female] sex, which was created to refine the joys and soften the cares of humanity…to consider them merely as objects of sight. Steele, 4/7/1711. The Spectator.

Mae West broke all the stereotypes of the female.
Women 114 Colette: “She [Mae West] alone, out of an enormous and dull catalogue of heroines, does not get married at the end of the film, does not die, does not take the road to exile, does not gaze sadly at her declining youth in a silver-framed mirror…and she alone does not experience the bitterness of the abandoned ‘older woman.’” Pierpont, Claudia Roth. “A Critic at Large: The Strong Woman.” The New Yorker (Nov. 11, 1996), pp. 106-118.

Life for a woman is all kisses and babies.
Women 292 Lysistrata: Our whole life’s but a pile of kisses and babies. Aristophanes, Lysistrata.

What is left for us women? Our children are borne and perish in vain in some far off land.
Women 307 Lysistrata: What of us then,/ Who ever in vain for children must weep/ Borne but to perish afar and in vain? Aristophanes, Lysistrata.

It’s hell to live with a man and hell to live without him.
Women 321 Men: A hell it is to live with you; to live without, a hell. Aristophanes, Lysistrata.

A sure formula: Be quiet and the women will surely talk.
Women 360 Sam well knew that he had only to remain quiet, and the women were sure to talk. Dickens, Pickwick.

Men bore me to death in two weeks.
Women and men 161 When I meet a man that doesn’t bore me to death after two weeks, perhaps it’ll be different. Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise.

To get men talking, just get them to talk about themselves.
Women and men 167 …after that, you make him talk about himself. Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise.

Women read romance novels to learn how a relationship between a man and a women becomes love.
Women and men 355 At the heart of every romance novel is a subject that is of enormous interest to a lot of women: how a relationship between a man and a woman develops into love. Marrow, L. Gross, ed. Editors on Editing.

Most romance novels deal with the problems in communication between a man and a woman in a relationship.
Women and men 355 Most successful romances explore in various amusing, exciting, and dramatic ways the problems men and women have communicating with each other and negotiating their roles within a relationship. Marrow, L. Gross, ed. Editors on Editing.

You can’t prove the superiority of men by the number of books they have written; they have had the opportunity to write books; women have not.
Women and men 234 Men have had every advantage of us [women] 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. Austen, Persuasion.

We don’t want to have to cater to men and taking up all our time.
Women and men 402 Mrs. Todd: We don’t want…no men folks havin’ to be considered every minute an’ takin’ up all our time. Jewett, The country of the Pointed Firs.

Women seem to know by instinct that most men’s aspirations are vain.
Women and men 139 There seems to be a deep instinct in women which teaches them that most of the aspirations of men are vain. Mencken, Minority Report.

Men assume that a woman’s life should be totally concentrated on a man’s affections while for the man who has many other activities and interests, affection for the woman is incidental.
Women and men 842 It is nonsense, and a miserable wrong--the result, like so many others of masculine egotism--that the success or failure of a woman’s existence should be made to depend wholly on the affections, and on one species of affection; while man has such a multitude of other chances, that this [affection between man and woman]seems but an incident. Hawthorne, The Blithedale Romance.

Mae West: men are simply stepping stones.
Women and Men 107 Mae West: “I learned to take ‘em [men] for what they were…stepping stones.” Pierpont, Claudia Roth. “A Critic at Large: The Strong Woman.” The New Yorker (Nov. 11, 1996), pp. 106-118.

Women in science are considered to be mere diversions from serious thinking.
Women in science 226 By then all traces of our early bickering were forgotten, and we both [Francis Crick and James Watson] came to appreciate greatly her [Rosy’s] personal honesty and generosity, realizing years too late the struggle that the intelligent woman faces to be accepted by a scientific world which often regards women as mere diversions form serious thinking. Watson, The Double Helix.