I should say that the majority of women (happily for society) are not very much troubled with sexual feeling of any kind. What men are habitually, women are only exceptionally. ... The best mothers, wives and managers of households know little or nothing of sexual indulgences. Love of home, of children, and of domestic duties are the only passions they feel.
~ William Acton, The Function and Disorders of the Reproductive Organs (1875).
Though men secluded from the company of women, become the most rude and uncultivated of animals, yet women almost entirely secluded from the company of men, in some particular cases, scarcely lose any thing of their softness and delicacy.
~ William Alexander, The History Of Women, From The Earliest Antiquity, To The Present Time, Volume I (1779). Chapter XIV
Buy old masters. They fetch a better price than old mistresses.
~ William Maxwell Aitken (Lord Beaverbrook) (recalled on his death, 9 June 1964).
The weaker sex, to piety more prone.
~ Sir William Alexander, Earl of Stirling, Doomsday (1614). The Fifth Hour
The peculiar mission of woman, it has been said, is to be a wife and mother. Is it not as truly the peculiar mission of man to be a husband and father?
~ William Rounseville (W.R.) Alger, The Friendships of Women (1868). Introduction
Poets, novelists, philosophers, saints, and most psychiatrists have known that the power and beauty of sex lie precisely in the fact that it is not like anything else, that it is not just something you like to do or don't like to do. Far from being value-neutral, sex may be among the most value-loaded of human activities.
~ William John Bennett, in National Review (3 July 1987). Why Johnny Can't Abstain
A man is a person that will pay two dollars for a one dollar item he wants. A woman will pay one dollar for a two dollar item she doesn't want.
~ William Binger
Let man wear the fell of the lion, woman the fleece of the sheep.
~ William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790-93). Proverbs of Hell
Sex, a great and mysterious motive force in human life, has indisputably been a subject of absorbing interest to mankind through the ages; it is one of the vital problems of human interest and public concern.
~ William Joseph Brennan, Jr. (majority opinion), Roth v. United States, 354 U.S. 476 (1957).
Sex and obscenity are not synonymous. Obscene material is material which deals with sex in a manner appealing to prurient interest -- i.e., material having a tendency to excite lustful thoughts.
~ William Joseph Brennan, Jr. (majority opinion), Roth v. United States, 354 U.S. 476 (1957).
There can be no doubt that our Nation has had a long and unfortunate history of sex discrimination. Traditionally, such discrimination was rationalized by an attitude of "romantic paternalism" which, in practical effect, put women, not on a pedestal, but in a cage.
~ William Joseph Brennan, Jr., Frontiero v. Richardson, 411 U.S. 677 (1973)
Admittedly, a homosexual can be conditioned to react sexually to a woman, or to an old boot for that matter. In fact, both homo- and heterosexual experimental subjects have been conditioned to react sexually to an old boot, and you can save a lot of money that way.
~ William S. Burroughs, The Adding Machine (1985). Civilian Defense
I feel that sex, like practically every other human manifestation, has been degraded for control purposes, or really for antihuman purposes. This whole Puritanism.
~ William S. Burroughs, Interview in The Paris Review, Issue 35 (Fall 1965). The Art of Fiction No. 36
In homosexual sex you know exactly what the other person is feeling, so you are identifying with the other person completely. In heterosexual sex you have no idea what the other person is feeling.
~ William S. Burroughs, in With William Burroughs: A Report from the Bunker (1981). On Men
It is doubtful if shame can exist in the absence of sexual libido.
~ William S. Burroughs, The Naked Lunch (1959).
There is the pleasurable orgasm, like a rising sales graph, and there is the unpleasurable orgasm, slumping ominously like the Dow Jones in 1929.
~ William S. Burroughs, The Adding Machine (1985). My Experiences with Wilhelm Reich's Orgone Box
Man proposes, woman supposes, marriage composes and divorce exposes.
~ Captain Billy's Whiz Bang, (January 1922).
[Don't forget, Mr. Carson, your body is the only home you'll ever have.] Yes, my home is pretty messy. But I have a woman who comes in once a week.
~ "Johnny" William Carson, NBC TV. The Tonight Show
I told my wife there was a chance that radiation might hurt my reproductive organs but she said in her opinion it's a small price to pay.
~ "Johnny" William Carson, NBC TV. The Tonight Show
They say atomic radiation can hurt your reproductive organs. My answer is so can a hockey stick. But we don't stop building them.
~ "Johnny" William Carson, NBC TV. The Tonight Show
Both men and women used to meet at supper (which was called their love-feast), when after they had loaded themselves with a plentiful meal, to prevent all shame, if they had any remaining, they put out the lights, and then promiscuously mixed in filthiness with one another.
~ William Cave, Primitive Christianity or the Religion of Ancient Christians in the First Ages of the Gospel (1672). Part II, chap. v
The creation of one flesh in the biblical sense involves the joining of two total existences, economically, spiritually, and psychologically, and not just the union of two bodies. To attempt the one without the other is dangerous to the entire relationship.
~ William G. Cole, Sex in Christianity and Psychoanalysis (1955).
If we know any thing by experience, we know that women cast themselves away impulsively on unworthy men, and that men ruin themselves headlong for unworthy women.
~ (William) Wilkie Collins, Man and Wife (1870). Chapter 36: The Truth At Last
In one respect, men are all alike; they hate to see a woman in tears.
~ (William) Wilkie Collins, The Evil Genius (1886), Vol. I. First Book, Chapter IX: Somebody Attends to the Door
No sensible man ever engages, unprepared, in a fencing match of words with a woman.
~ (William) Wilkie Collins, The Woman in White (1860). The Narrative of Vincent Gilmore, Solicitor, Of Chancery-Lane, London. II
Give her her due, I think the woman's a woman, and that's all. As such, I'm sure I shall like her; for the devil take me if I don't love all the sex.
~ William Congreve, The Old Bachelor (1693).
Some people have a mirror above the bed to watch themselves doing it. But I'm such an ugly bastard, I don't want to see a big white arse moving up and down.
~ Billy Connolly
The human race has been set up. Someone, somewhere, is playing a practical joke on us. Apparently, women need to feel loved to have sex. Men need to have sex to feel loved. How do we ever get started?
~ Billy Connolly
There must be something wrong with us that our teenagers longing for sex and our middle-aged matrons fed up with sex alike should fall for such a sugary mountain of jingling claptrap wrapped up in such a preposterous clown.
~ Sir William Connor (Cassandra) (of Liberace), in The Daily Mirror (1956).
In spite of the profound love I have for my wife, sex at my age has become exhausting, which leaves me yearning for a younger body, or longing for a good nap.
~ Bill Cosby, Time Flies (1987).
Men and women belong to different species, and communication between them is a science still in its infancy.
~ Bill Cosby, Love And Marriage (1989).
Sex education may be a good idea in the schools, but I don't believe the kids should be given homework.
~ Bill Cosby
When the child is twelve, your wife buys her a splendidly silly article of clothing called a training bra. To train what? I never had a training jock. And believe me, when I played football, I could have used a training jock more than any twelve-year-old needs a training bra.
~ Bill Cosby, Fatherhood (1986). Chapter 6
Women need a reason to have sex -- men just need a place.
~ Billy Crystal
Now sex is a thing which has to be experienced firsthand, if you are really going to understand it, and pornography is rather like trying to find out about a Beethoven symphony by having somebody tell you about it and perhaps hum a few bars.
~ (William) Robertson Davies, The Enthusiams of Robertson Davies (1990). The Table Talk of Robertson Davies
The actual work of the world today depends more largely upon women than upon men.
~ William Edward Burghardt (W.E.B.) Du Bois, in The Crisis magazine, Volume 11 (1915). Woman Suffrage
The present mincing horror at free womanhood must pass if we are ever to be rid of the bestiality of free manhood; not by guarding the weak in weakness do we gain strength, but by making weakness free and strong.
~ William Edward Burghardt (W.E.B.) Du Bois, from Darkwater: Voices from within the Veil (1920). Chapter VII: The Damnation Of Women
When in this world a man comes forward with a thought, a deed, a vision, we ask not, how does he look, -- but what is his message? It is of but passing interest whether or not the messenger is beautiful or ugly, -- the message is the thing. This, which is axiomatic among men, has been in past ages but partially true if the messenger was a woman. The world still wants to ask that a woman primarily be pretty and if she is not, the mob pouts and asks querulously, "What else are women for?"
~ William Edward Burghardt (W.E.B.) Du Bois, from Darkwater: Voices from within the Veil (1920). Chapter VII: The Damnation Of Women
I lost my virginity when I was 14. And I haven't been able to find it.
~ David William Duchovny, Playboy Interview: David Duchovny (December 1998).
Sex is great until you die, but it's never as great as it was when you were a kid, when it was a mystery.
~ David William Duchovny, Playboy Interview: David Duchovny (December 1998).
Sexual harassment is about sex, not about harassment. It's become about power, and that's not the same thing. ... We've got people trying to win the lottery on other people. It's easy, because it's just he said-she said.
~ David William Duchovny, Playboy Interview: David Duchovny (December 1998).
If you wish to learn which sex is the more intelligent, watch any man in relation with any woman, and see which of the two will twist the other around her finger.
~ William James "Will" Durant
Men are by nature, slaves to women, and women are by nature slaves to children and the race; in that natural slavery is the secret of their deepest and most durable content.
~ William James "Will" Durant, The Mansions of Philosophy: A Survey Of Human Life And Destiny (1929).
Superheroes are mostly aimed at young teen-age males concerned with their manhood. The medium will have to address itself more to content. ... I see 22 year olds draw massive Schwarzenegger types, outfitted with metal studs, pressing a mostly naked woman to their breastplates. And I think "Poor girl, that's got to be cold."
~ Will Eisner, The Associated Press (11 June 1998). Comics Grand Master is Unrecognized
[A]t first sight of her you felt a kind of shock of gratitude just for being alive and being male at the same instant with her in space and time, and then in the next second and forever after a kind of despair because you knew that there would never be enough of any one male to match and hold and deserve her; grief forever after because forever after nothing less would ever do.
~ William Faulkner, The Town (1957).
Women know more about words than men ever will. And they know how little they can ever possibly mean.
~ William Faulkner, Soldier's Pay (1926).
Women lie about their age; men lie about their income.
~ William Feather
A man without a woman is like a neck without a pain.
~ W.C. Fields
Sex isn't necessary. You don't die without it -- but you can die having it.
~ W.C. Fields, in W.C. Fields & Me (1971).
Show me a great actor and I'll show you a lousy husband. Show me a great actress, and you've seen the devil.
~ W.C. Fields
Some things are better than sex, and some are worse, but there's nothing exactly like it.
~ W.C. Fields
While we cannot maintain that in everything woman is man's equal, yet in many things her patience, perseverance and method made [sic] her his superior. Therefore, let us hope that in astronomy, which now affords a large field for woman's work and skills, she may, as has been the case in several other sciences, at least prove herself his equal!
~ Williamina Fleming, Address at the World Columbian Exposition in Chicago (1893)
The matter with woman -- only she is at long last getting over it -- is not that she lacks a soul; it is merely that she has one. She has had it for a long time, far longer than man has; she is its originator and first possessor.
~ Wilson Follett, in The Atlantic Monthly (1920). The Soulful Sex
I'm Cheryl -- Fly Me!
~ Forrest (F.) William Free (ad campaign created for National Airlines in October 1971 that was denounced by The National Organization for Women as a depiction of women as sex objects), quoted in The New York Times (8 January 2003). F. William Free, Ad Man Behind 'Fly Me,' Dies at 74
I really think that sex always looks kind of funny in a movie.
~ William Friedkin, (1995).
I'm into the girls fancying me and stuff, mad for it. Get a bit worried if boys started fancying me, definitely. I've got nothing against gays ... as long as they don't pinch me on the bum or whatever.
~ Liam Gallagher
Sex is on the minds of most people, especially those who shouldn't be having it.
~ William Glasser, M.D.
The sexes were made for each other, and only in the wise and loving union of the two is the fulness of health and duty and happiness to be expected.
~ William Hall
Women have often more of what is called good sense then men. They have fewer pretensions; are less implicated in theories; and judge of objects more from their immediate and involuntary impression on the mind, and, therefore, more truly and naturally.
~ William Hazlitt, Table-Talk; or, Original Essays, Volume II (1821-1822). Essay VIII. On the Ignorance of the Learned
The only jobs for which no man is qualified are human incubator and wet nurse. Likewise, the only job for which no women is or can be qualified is sperm donor.
~ Wilma Scott Heide
O, it's die we must, but it's live we can,
And the marvel of earth and sun
Is all for the joy of woman and man
And the longing that makes them one.
~ William Ernest (W.E.) Henley, "Hawthorn and Lavender XXII," Poems (1920). Between the Dusk of a Summer Night (composed c. 1899)
Supreme Court says pornography is anything without artistic merit that causes sexual thoughts; that's their definition, essentially. No artistic merit, causes sexual thoughts. Hmm. ... Sounds like ... every commercial on television, doesn't it?
~ Bill Hicks
[A] truly beautiful and purely feminine nature should be attracted only by what is highest and noblest in the character of man.
~ Wilhelm von Humboldt, in Letters of William Von Humboldt to a Female Friend, Vol. I (1849 translation). Letter XIX. May 26, 1823
Every man, the world throughout,
Holds a degree of bliss, no doubt:
This must be doubled, free from care,
When lovely woman adds her share.
~ William Hutton, from Poems, chiefly tales (1804). The Pleasures of Matrimony
Man's intellectual work is done like the work of a mill-stream, by conscious and deliberate direction. Woman's intellectual work is done chiefly like that of the sun, -- by unconscious and unpretentious radiation.
~ William Dewitt Hyde, The College Man and the College Woman (1906). Chapter X: The Worth of the Womanly Ideal
Face to face
And back to back
You see and feel
My sex attack
Sing it
Flesh, flesh for fantasy
We want
Flesh, flesh for fantasy.
~ Billy Idol, in Rebel Yell (1989 album). Flesh For Fantasy
I'd rather laugh in bed than do it. If I went to a lady of the night, I'd probably pay her to tell me jokes. Would that be perverted?
~ Billy Joel
It's awful hard trying to make love long distance, but I really need stimulation.
~ Billy Joel
There's nothing better than good sex. But bad sex? A peanut butter and jelly sandwich is better than bad sex.
~ Billy Joel
Men like to get together with men every now and then and women like to get together with women every now and then. That's a simple fact of life in America.
~ William Woodward "Hootie" Johnson (remarks at the annual state-of-the-Masters press conference), The Associated Press (9 April 2003). Club has no timetable: Augusta chairman 'comfortable' with present status
Our club has enjoyed a camaraderie and a closeness that's served us well for so long, that it makes it difficult for us to consider change. A woman may be a member of this club one day, but that is out in the future.
~ William Woodward "Hootie" Johnson, The Associated Press (Interview; 4 November 2002).
We're a private club. And private organizations are good. The Boy Scouts. The Girl Scouts. Junior League. Sororities. Fraternities. Are these immoral? See, we are in good company as a single-gender organization.
~ William Woodward "Hootie" Johnson, The Associated Press (Interview; 4 November 2002).
Man without Woman is not complete. They two are but one being, complete and life-giving. Love when it comes is the key-stone of this brief span of Life of ours. They who have loved have tasted truly of the best that Life can give to them. And this is the great wrong of civilisation today, that it takes Loves from most and leaves in us only a feverish, degrading Lust.
~ William Lane, The Workingman's Paradise (1892).
[A]n ideal type in which meekness, gentleness, patience, humility, faith, and love are the most prominent features, is not naturally male but female.
~ William Edward Hartpole (E.H.) Lecky, History of European Morals, Volume II (1869). Chapter V. The Position of Women
That unhappy being whose very name is a shame to speak; who counterfeits with a cold heart the transports of affection, and submits herself as the passive instrument of lust; who is scorned and insulted as the vilest of her sex, and doomed, for the most part, to disease and abject wretchedness and an early death, appears in every age as the perpetual symbol of the degradation and the sinfulness of man.
~ William Edward Hartpole (E.H.) Lecky, History of European Morals, Volume II (1869). Chapter V. The Position of Women
We thought sex was free. Sex is not free. There's a price to be paid emotionally, physically, even legally. Sex isn't a casual thing. It's a huge thing.
~ William H. Macy, USA Weekend Magazine (23-25 October 1998). Straight Talk
The cable TV sex channels don't expand our horizons, don't make us better people, and don't come in clearly enough.
~ Bill Maher
I always hear women say, 'you know, married men live longer.' Uh, yes, and an indoor cat also lives longer. It's a furball with a broken spirit that can only look out on a world it will never enjoy. But it does technically live longer.
~ Bill Maher, in HBO-TV special, Bill Maher: Victory Begins at Home (July 2003; Live performance at the Hudson Theatre, New York).
Women cannot complain about men anymore until they start getting better taste in them.
~ Bill Maher
Sex is a natural function. You can't make it happen, but you can teach people to let it happen
~ Dr. William H. Masters, in The New York Times (29 October 1984).
The best sex education for kids is when Daddy pats Mommy on the fanny when he comes home from work.
~ Dr. William H. Masters, NBC TV (16 August 1971).
The sexes were made for each other; it is from the other that each gets the most and the best of the material for its culture; and no scheme that ignores this truth can ever succeed, because the sentiments, the instincts, the irrespressible yearnings of human nature, are all against it.
~ William Mathews, from The Great Conversers, And Other Essays (1874). II. Literary Clubs
The people most apt to report they are very satisfied with their current sex life are marrieds who 'strongly' believe sex outside of marriage is wrong. Roll over Hugh Hefner. Tell Madonna the news.
~ William R. Mattox, Jr., in The Washington Post (13 February 1994). The Hottest Valentines
American women expect to find in their husbands a perfection that English women only hope to find in their butlers.
~ W. Somerset Maugham, The Razor's Edge (1944).
I have always been convinced that if a woman once made up her mind to marry a man, nothing but instant flight could save him.
~ W. Somerset Maugham
No man in his heart is quite so cynical as a well-bred woman.
~ W. Somerset Maugham, from A Writer's Notebook (1949).
There is hardly anyone whose sexual life, if it were broadcast, would not fill the world at large with surprise and horror.
~ W. Somerset Maugham
Literature is becoming emasculated by being written mainly for women and largely by women. The majority of men in this country, having been co-educated by women-teachers, are unaware of this directly, but become vaguely impressed that something is the matter later in life. I call it the sissification of literature and life. The point of view of the modern "important" novel like "Ulysses" is feminine in its preoccupation with the nastiness of sex.
~ William McFee, in The Nation (20 July 1927). Letter to the Editor
Terrible and sublime thought, that every moment is supreme for some man and woman, every hour the apotheosis of some passion!
~ William McFee, Casuals of the Sea: The Voyage of a Soul (1916). Book Two. The City
[W]ives invariably flourish when deserted ... it is the deserting male, the reckless idealist rushing about the world seeking a nonexistent felicity, who often ends in disaster.
~ William McFee, Harbours of Memory (1921). Knights and Turcopoliers
In my opinion, what a man pays for he certainly should get;
And if he does not, he will certainly fret;
And why wouldn't women do the very same?
~ William Topaz McGonagall, in Last Poetic Gems (1968). Women's Suffrage
Sex is the cure-all.
~ Joe "Willie" Namath
A woman may very well form a friendship with a man, but for this to endure, it must be assisted by a little physical antipathy.
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Human, All Too Human (1878).
In revenge and in love woman is more barbarous than man.
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil (1885-86).
The perfect woman is a higher type of human than the perfect man, and also something much more rare.
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Human, All Too Human (1878).
The same emotions are in man and woman, but in different tempo, on that account man and woman never cease to misunderstand each other.
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil (1885-86).
These people abstain, it is true: but the bitch Sensuality glares enviously out of all they do.
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra (1885). Chastity
Sexes make no Difference; since in Souls there is none: And they are the Subjects of Friendship.
~ William Penn, Some Fruits of Solitude (1693). Part I. Avarice
On a sofa upholstered in panther skin
Mona did researches in original sin.
~ William Charles Franklyn Plomer, from Selected Poems (1940). Mews Flat Mona
The lover smiles when he thinks he has won; the woman who loves ceases to smile with victory. He ends a battle; she begins hers.
~ William Sydney Porter (O. Henry), from The Voice of the City: Further Stories of the Four Million (1908). Roses, Ruses and Romance
What a woman wants is what you're out of.
~ William Sydney Porter (O. Henry), The Heart of the West (1904). Cupid a La Carte
[F]ull sexual consciousness and a natural regulation of sexual life mean the end of mystical feelings of any kind, that, in other words, natural sexuality is the deadly enemy of mystical religion. The church, by making the fight over sexuality the center of its dogmas and of its influence over the masses, confirms this concept.
~ Wilhelm Reich
It is sexual energy which governs the structure of human feeling and thinking.
~ Wilhelm Reich, The Sexual Revolution (1936).
Sexual inhibition alters the structure of the economically suppressed individual in such a manner that he thinks, feels and acts against his own material interests.
~ Wilhelm Reich, The Mass Psychology of Fascism (1946 edition & translation; originally written in 1933). Chapter I. Ideology As Material Power
The pleasure of living and the pleasure of the orgasm are identical. Extreme orgasm anxiety forms the basis of the general fear of life.
~ Wilhelm Reich, The Function of the Orgasm (Die Funktion des Orgasmus; 1927, trans. 1942). Chapter 5, sct. 4
The suppression of natural sexual gratification leads to various kinds of substitute gratifications.
~ Wilhelm Reich, The Mass Psychology of Fascism (1946 edition & translation; originally written in 1933). Chapter I. Ideology As Material Power
What's this generation coming to? I bet the time ain't far off when a woman won't know any more than a man!
~ Will Rogers
To deny sex is to deny life. To reject art is to impoverish yourself, rejecting pleasure and growth. To accept sex and art together is to add to oneself, to be positive instead of negative. Erotic cinema ... reveals us to ourselves with increasing artistry.
~ William Rotsler
There's a pretty woman for every lucky man in the world ... every man in the world is a lucky man if he only knew it, so why waste time?
~ William Saroyan, Jim Dandy, Fat Man in a Famine (1947).
What does a man mean? What is the meaning of a man? What is he supposed to be? How is he supposed to be what he is supposed to be? What is the purpose of him? What is he supposed to do? How is he supposed to do it? Does he mean anything?
~ William Saroyan, Rock Wagram (1951).
A woman impudent and mannish grown
Is not more loathed than an effeminate man
In time of action.
~ William Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida. Act III, scene iii
Is there no way for men to be, but women
Must be half-workers?
~ William Shakespeare, Cymbeline
Lechery, lechery! Still, wars and lechery: nothing else holds fashion. A burning devil take them!
~ William Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida
Let not women's weapons, water-drops,
Stain my man's cheeks!
~ William Shakespeare, King Lear
Men are April when they woo, December when they are wed; maids are May when they are maids, but the sky changes when they are wives.
~ William Shakespeare, As You Like It. Act IV, scene i
Men's vows are women's traitors!
~ William Shakespeare, Cymbeline. Act III, scene iv
Who would be a father!
~ William Shakespeare, Othello. Act I, scene i
Your daughter and the Moor are now making the beast with two backs.
~ William Shakespeare, Othello. Act I, scene i
We are sexual people, no matter who we are. We need to look at candidates for priesthood who have well-integrated their sexual identities into their lives.
~ Bishop William S. Skylstad, The Salt Lake Tribune (8 June 2002). Catholic Bishop: 'We Have to Do Something and ... Quickly'
We need to find effective ways to help people integrate the gift of sexuality in a healthy, wholesome way so that it is life-giving, responsible and respectful of the individual.
~ Bishop William S. Skylstad, The Salt Lake Tribune (8 June 2002). Catholic Bishop: 'We Have to Do Something and ... Quickly'
I am a sexual machine now. Raring to go every second of the day. I'm human Viagra. I am Will-agra.
~ Will Smith, in Premiere magazine (2001).
Tons of women would love to have sex with me. I hate the image of black men as promiscuous and unable to control themselves sexually. I don't like that image.
~ Will Smith, ABC TV "Primetime" (13 December 2001). Taking on Ali: The Fight of Will Smith's Life
Man is content to know that he is loved,
And tires the constant phrase "I love" to hear;
But woman doubts the instrument is broke
Unless she daily hear the sweet refrain.
~ William Wetmore Story, from Graffiti d'Italia (1868). Ginevra da Siena
Did Man and Woman Descend from Different Animals?
~ William H. Smyth, Book title (1927).
As long as women are sacrificed to the lusts of men, so long will a hell be absolutely indispensable.
~ W.T. (William Thomas) Stead, The Northern Echo (27 October 1871). Bishop Frazer on the Social Evil
I have a hunch that the last institution around at this moment which has a high doctrine of sex is the Church.
~ William Swing
We still believe sex is a good gift from God but it needs to be in context of a committed, loving, continuing relationship.
~ William Swing
Where there is an ongoing relationship of caring. Where there is a sense of humor. Where there is a sense of mutual mercy. Where there is a sense that God has given sex to you ... there is nothing livelier. But when it is merchandised as a commodity for instant gratification, there is nothing deadlier than sex.
~ William Swing, in Episcopalian (March 1986).
And oh, what a mercy it is that these women do not exercise their powers oftener! We can't resist them, if they do. Let them show ever so little inclination, and men go down on their knees at once: old or ugly, it is all the same. And this I set down as a positive truth. A woman with fair opportunities, and without an absolute hump, may marry whom she likes. Only let us be thankful that the darlings are like the beasts of the field, and don't know their own power. They would overcome us entirely if they did.
~ William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair: A Novel without a Hero (1848). Chapter IV
I never wrote a letter in all my life that would commit me, and demmy, sir, I have had some experience of women.
~ William Makepeace Thackeray, The History of Pendennis (1848-1850), Volume II. Chapter XXVI: Temptation
One of the great benefits a young man may derive from women's society is, that he is bound to be respectful to them.
~ William Makepeace Thackeray, from Sketches and Travels in London (1847). Mr. Brown's Letters to his Nephew: The Influence of Lovely Woman Upon Society
'Tis strange what a man may do, and a woman yet think him an angel.
~ William Makepeace Thackeray, The History of Henry Esmond (1852). Book I. Chapter VII: I Am Left At Castlewood An Orphan, And Find Most Kind Protectors There
[W]hen we take into consideration the superior cunning as well as the superior endurance of women, we may even raise the question whether their capacity for intellectual work is not under equal conditions greater than in man.
~ William Isaac "W.I." Thomas, Sex and Society: Studies in the Social Psychology of Sex (1907). The Mind of Woman and the Lower Races
Man, like woman, if he wish to be beloved, must learn the art of pleasing, of benevolence, of deserving love.
~ William Thompson, Appeal of One-half of the Human Race, Women, Against the Pretensions of the Other Half, Men, to Retain Them in Political, and Thence in Civil and Domestic Slavery (1825).
Pornography, in a way, is indeed as the moralist claims, "garbage"; it is the rotting compost-heap of old mythologies left over from all the cultures of human evolution.
~ William Irwin Thompson, The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light: Mythology, Sexuality and the Origins of Culture (1981).
Sexes are proper, and not common;
Man must be Man, and Woman Woman.
~ William Whitehead, The Goat's Beard. A Fable (1777).
Born equals, so we live and die.
~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Poems of Problems (1914). To Men
It has ever been since time began,
And ever will be, till time lose breath,
That love is a mood -- no more -- to man,
And love to a woman is life or death.
~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Blind
What they [critics] call dirty in our pictures, they call lusty in foreign films.
~ Billy Wilder, in Billy Wilder (1968).
The homosexual subculture based on brief, barren assignations is, in part, a dark mirror of the sex-obsessed majority culture.
~ George F. Will, (1977).
I feel a women's role has got to be a gentle role and perhaps if we can do it correctly, the men would like to follow us, or walk beside us. Not to follow -- but walk beside.
~ Betty Williams, PeaceJam Foundation (4 July 1995). An Interview with Betty Williams
I won't forget when Peter Pan
came to my house, took my hand
I said I was a boy, I'm glad he didn't check.
~ Dar Williams, When I Was a Boy
I don't believe virginity is common as it used to be.
~ Don Williams
There may be somewhere in the world -- a man who will push me forward in a career. Allow me to express my soul. Oh, is there such a man?
~ Laura M. Williams, in Up-To-The-Minute Monologues (1919). Clara's Husbands
Sex is good. Everybody does it and everybody should.
~ Robbie Williams
You could talk about same-sex marriage, but people who have been married (say) 'It's the same sex all the time.'
~ Robin Williams, Performance at the 76th Annual Academy Awards, Los Angeles CA (29 February 2004).
I am here to play women's tennis. I'm a lady. Predominantly, most of the time I always like to play ladies.
~ Serena Williams (on whether she would consider an exhibition tournament against the top men), The Age (26 January 2003). My slam is just as grand: Serena
I'm here to play female tennis. I've never been involved in men's tennis. ... I wouldn't be tempted.
~ Serena Williams, The Associated Press (26 May 2003). Serena won't follow Annika
[A]ll pretty girls are a trap, a pretty trap, and men expect them to be.
~ Thomas Lanier ("Tennessee") Williams, The Glass Menagerie (1944). Scene Six
No living person doesn't contain both sexes. Mine could have been either one. Truly, I have two sides to my nature.
~ Thomas Lanier ("Tennessee") Williams, in The New York Times (3 November 1975). Tennessee Williams on Art and Sex
It is the woman in us
That makes us write --
Let us acknowledge it --
Man would be silent.
~ William Carlos Williams, from The Tempers (1913). Transitional
A man might lay down his life for a friend, but a woman might not lay down her honour.
~ Alice Muriel Williamson, The Barn Stormers: Being The Tragical Side Of A Comedy (1897). Chapter XXIV
Some men know that a light touch of the tongue, running from a woman's toes to her ears, lingering in the softest way possible in various places in between, given often enough and sincerely enough, would add immeasurably to world peace.
~ Marianne Williamson, A Woman's Worth (1993).
There are two kinds of sex, classical and baroque. Classical sex is romantic, profound, serious, emotional, moral, mysterious, spontaneous, abandoned, focused on a particular person, and stereotypically feminine. Baroque sex is pop, playful, funny, experimental, conscious, deliberate, amoral, anonymous, focused on sensation for sensation's sake, and stereotypically masculine. The classical mentality taken to an extreme is sentimental and finally puritanical; the baroque mentality taken to an extreme is pornographic and finally obscene. Ideally, a sexual relation ought to create a satisfying tension between the two modes (a baroque idea, particularly if the tension is ironic) or else blend them so well that the distinction disappears (a classical aspiration).
~ Ellen Willis, Beginning To See the Light: Pieces of a Decade (1981). Classical and Baroque Sex in Everyday Life
Many is the time I looked at my daddy and seen him staring off at his hands. I got a little older I know what he was thinking. He sitting there saying, "I got these big old hands but what I'm gonna do with them?"
~ August Wilson, The Piano Lesson (1987).
That's like saying women can't play major league baseball because they can't spit and scratch as well as the boys, not whether they can throw a baseball. In today's wars, either sex can handle computers, track satellites or deal with robotics and computerized combat software.
~ Capt. Barbara Wilson (ret.), Aerotech News and Review (3 March 2003). Controversy remains over women's role in hand-to-hand combat
To sell something, tell a woman it's a bargain; tell a man it's deductable.
~ Earl Wilson
At 60 ... the sexual preoccupation, when it hits you, seems sometimes sharper, as if it were an elderly malady, like gout.
~ Edmund Wilson
If insemination were the sole biological function of sex, it could be achieved far more economically in a few seconds of mounting and insertion. Indeed, the least social of mammals mate with scarcely more ceremony. The species that have evolved long-term bonds are also, by and large, the ones that rely on elaborate courtship rituals. ... Love and sex do indeed go together.
~ Edward Osborne (E.O.) Wilson, On Human Nature (1978).
I have just used the words "man" and "his." Before going any further, let me be clear that in this book the masculine pronoun, unless otherwise indicated, refers to both males and females. As the dictionary makes clear, that pronoun has been used since time immemorial to represent any person whose sex is not specified.
~ James Q. Wilson, The Moral Sense (1993). Preface (footnote)
I shall not say why and how I became, at the age of fifteen, the mistress of the Earl of Craven.
~ Harriette Wilson, Memoirs (1825).
A Mistress should be like a little Country retreat near the Town, not to dwell in constantly, but only for a night and away; to taste the Town the better when a Man returns.
~ William Wycherley, The Country Wife (1673). Act I, scene i
The folly that man does
Or must suffer, if he woos
A proud woman not kindred of his soul.
~ William Butler Yeats, from The Winding Stair and Other Poems (1933). A Dialogue of Self and Soul
© 1999-2012 all things William. All Rights Reserved.
A Collection of Quotes Based on the Name William