Women

In one insightful study of fathers and their daughters, it was found that these women's achievements in life were directly related to the level of their father's acceptance of them.
~ William S. Appleton

The nakedness of woman is the work of God.
~ William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790-93). Proverbs of Hell

A woman past forty should make up her mind to be young -- not her face.
~ Billie Burke (Mary William Ethelbert Appleton Burke)

No woman has less temptation to seek matrimony from sordid motives of selfishness or convenience. The actress is an absolutely independent wage-earner, and better compensated than the great majority of women who make their own livelihoods. She need not marry for money, or social position, for these are her natural possessions.
~ Billie Burke (Mary William Ethelbert Appleton Burke), in Theatre Magazine (1917). Do Players Seldom Marry?

This is an era of woman's work in many spheres of activity -- of independent thought and individual achievement in the arts and sciences and learned professions, as well as the humbler, but not more self-sacrificing fields of usefulness. But every woman pursues the eternal quest for love, for sympathy, for understanding, for happiness, and in her heart is the great, holy yearning for motherhood.
~ Billie Burke (Mary William Ethelbert Appleton Burke), in Theatre Magazine (1917). Do Players Seldom Marry?

Young ladies, think of this fair girl and always dress aright,
And never venture thinly clad on such a wintry night.
~ William Lorenzo Carter, Young (or Fair) Charlotte. Last stanza

Women are a sisterhood. They make common cause in behalf of the sex; and, indeed, this is natural enough, when we consider the vast power that the law gives us over them.
~ William Cobbett, Advice to Young Men: And (Incidentally) to Young Women in the Middle and Higher Ranks of Life (1829). Letter IV: To A Husband

O the pious friendships of the female sex!
~ William Congreve, The Way of the World (1700). Act II, scene iii

Whom she refuses, she treats still
With so much sweet behaviour,
That her refusal, through her skill,
Looks almost like a favour.
~ William Congreve

[W]omen are like tricks by sleight of hand,
Which, to admire, we should not understand.
~ William Congreve, Love for Love (1695). Act 4, scene 21

The two most important things to the American female are man's prevention of nuclear war and man's putting the toilet seat down.
~ Bill Cosby, Fatherhood (1986).

Women don't want to hear what you think. Women want to hear what they think -- in a deeper voice.
~ Bill Cosby

The test of civilization is the estimate of woman. Among savages she is a slave. In the dark ages of Christianity she is a toy and a sentimental goddess. With increasing moral light, and greater liberty, and more universal justice, she begins to develop as an equal human being.
~ George William Curtis

To ennoble ev'n the lowliest condition,
To train herself and others,
Husband, little ones, and brothers,
For a better land, methinks, is woman's mission.
~ William Drennan, in Glendalloch, Other Poems by the Late Dr Drennan (1859). Woman's Mission

The future woman must have a life, work and economic independence. She must have the right of motherhood at her own discretion.
~ William Edward Burghardt (W.E.B.) Du Bois

Women's fashion is a subtle form of bondage. It's men's way of binding them. We put them in these tight, high-heeled shoes, we make them wear these tight clothes and we say they look sexy. But they're actually tied up.
~ David William Duchovny, Playboy Interview: David Duchovny (December 1998).

Finding God's most glorious work to be Woman, that all human beauty had been concentrated in her, I resolved to dedicate myself to painting . . . God's most glorious work, more finely than ever had been done.
~ William Etty

I never promise a woman anything nor let her know what I'm going to give her. That's the only way to manage them. Always keep them guessing.
~ William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury (October 1929). April Sixth, 1928

The ideal woman which is in every man's mind is evoked by a word or phrase or the shape of her wrist, her hand. The most beautiful description of a woman is by understatement. Remember, all Tolstoy ever said to describe Anna Karenina was that she was beautiful and could see in the dark like a cat. Every man has a different idea of what's beautiful, and it's best to take the gesture, the shadow of the branch, and let the mind create the tree.
~ William Faulkner (1955 seminar and speeches in Japan), Tokyo: Kenkyusha (1956). Faulkner at Nagano

Few women are dumb enough to listen to reason.
~ William Feather

It was a woman who drove me to drink -- and, you know, I never even thanked her.
~ W.C. Fields, Attributed

Never try to impress a woman, because if you do she'll expect you to keep up the standard for the rest of your life.
~ W.C. Fields

No doubt exists that all women are crazy; it's only a question of degree.
~ W.C. Fields

Women are like elephants. They are interesting to look at, but I wouldn't want to own one.
~ W.C. Fields

You know women ought to be like bank notes. You ought to be able to exchange one 40 for two 20's.
~ W.C. Fields

It will yet be the proud boast of women that they never contributed a line to the Bible.
~ George William Foote

God speed the moment when in every land
All doors shall open to a woman's hand.
~ William Dudley Foulke, from Lyrics of War and Peace (1916). Ad Patriam: To Womankind. Stanza III: Justice

Though woman never can be man,
By change of sex and a' that,
To social rights, 'gainst class and clan,
Her claim is just, for a' that.
For a' that, and a' that,
Her Eden slip, and a' that,
In all that makes a living soul
She matches man, for a' that.
~ William Lloyd Garrison, An Autograph (Janurary 3, 1875)

To be womanly, is the greatest charm of woman.
~ William Ewart Gladstone

Emeralds! Aren't they divine? jack gave them to me to shut up about Women's Lib.
~ William Hamilton, William Hamilton's Anti-Social Register (1974 cartoon).

Gallantry to women (the sure road to their favour) is nothing but the appearance of extreme devotion to all their wants and wishes -- a delight in their satisfaction, and a confidence in yourself, as being able to contribute towards it.
~ William Hazlitt, On Disagreeable People (August 1827).

The pedestal is immobilizing and subtly insulting whether or not some women yet realize it. We must move up from the pedestal.
~ Wilma Scott Heide

There are two kinds of women -- those who pay too much attention to themselves and those who don't pay enough.
~ William Holden (William Franklin Beedle, Jr.)

If it were not somewhat fanciful to suppose that every human excellence is presented, as it were, in one kind of being, we might believe that the whole treasure of morality and order is enshrined in the female character.
~ Wilhelm von Humboldt, The Limits of State Action (1791). Chapter 3

And a long tall woman will make a preacher lay his Bible down. . . .
But a big, fat mama will make a mule kick his stall down.
~ Willie Jackson, Singin' the Blues

There may well come a day when women will be invited to join our membership but that timetable will be ours and not at the point of a bayonet.
~ William Woodward "Hootie" Johnson, Statement by Hootie Johnson from the Augusta National Golf Club (9 July 2002)

In the seventies we had to make it acceptable for people to accept girls and women as athletes. We had to make it okay for them to be active. Those were much scarier times for females in sports.
~ Billie Jean King, in ESPN "Classic's SportsCentury" (2001). Billie Jean won for all women

It is very hard to be a female leader. While it is assumed that any man, no matter how tough, has a soft side . . . any female leader is assumed to be one-dimensional.
~ Billie Jean King, Billie Jean (1982).

You Catholic girls start much too late
But sooner or later it comes down to fate
I might as well be the one.
~ Billy Joel, from The Stranger (1977 album). Only the Good Die Young

No education can be of true advantage to young women but that which trains them up in humble industry, in great plainness of living, in exact modesty of dress.
~ William Law

No woman is a good housewife that wanteth either bees, or skillfulness about them.
~ William Lawson, The Country Housewife's Garden (1617).

[T]hose fierce invectives against this sex, which form a conspicuous and grotesque portion of the writings of the Church fathers.
~ William Edward Hartpole (E.H.) Lecky, History of European Morals, II (1869). Chapter V: The Position of Women

Hillary [Clinton] and Nancy [Reagan] have a lot in common -- they're both smarter than their husbands and both consulted the stars for guidance, Nancy with astrology and Hillary with Barbra Streisand.
~ Bill Maher, ABC TV (1995). Politically Incorrect

If you were on a sinking ship and yelled, "Women and children first!" how much feminist opposition do you think you'd get? . . . Women want to fight men for equal pay, but how often do they fight a man for the check? . . . And any man who questions a woman's physical capabilities gets branded a sexist -- but who do they call when there's a spider to be killed? Convenient feminism -- crackpot theory or dangerous lunacy?
~ Bill Maher, ABC TV (1993). Politically Incorrect

Not even girls want to be girls so long as our feminine archetype lacks force, strength, and power. Not wanting to be girls, they don't want to be tender, submissive, peace-loving as good women are. Women's strong qualities have become despised because of their weakness. The obvious remedy is to create a feminine character with all the strength of Superman plus all the allure of a good and beautiful woman.
~ William Moulton Marston, in The American Scholar (1943).

A woman will always sacrifice herself if you give her the opportunity. It is her favorite form of self-indulgence.
~ W. Somerset Maugham

She's all my fancy painted her,
She's lovely, she's divine.
~ William Mee, Alice Gray

Women can instantly see through each other, and it's surprising how little they observe that's pleasant.
~ Wilson Mizner

When a woman tells you her age, it's all right to look surprised, but don't scowl.
~ Wilson Mizner

Tension easers and scenery brighteners.
~ Joe "Willie" Namath

Ah, women. They make the highs higher and the lows more frequent.
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

If a woman seeks education, it is probably because her sexual apparatus is malfunctioning.
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

Man wishes woman to be peaceable, but in fact she is essentially warlike, like the cat.
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil (1885-86).

Supposing that Truth is a woman ---well, now, is there not some foundation for suspecting that all philosophers, insofar as they were dogmatists, have not known how to handle women?
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil (1885-86).

Where there is neither love nor hatred in the game, woman's play is mediocre.
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil (1885-86).

Woman learns how to hate in proportion as she forgets how to charm.
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil (1885-86).

Woman was God's second mistake.
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, The Antichrist (1888). Section 48

Women's modesty generally increases with their beauty.
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Human, All Too Human (1878).

You are going to women? Do not forget the whip!
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra (1885).

Some women don't mind wadin' thru the breesh to get to a picnic.
~ Minnie Pearl (Sarah Ophelia Colley, on the mustache)

The perpetual hunger to be beautiful and that thirst to be loved which is the real curse of Eve.
~ Jean Rhys (née Ella Gwendoline Rees Williams), from The Left Bank and Other Stories (1927). Illusion

I never expected to see the day when girls would get sunburned in the places they do now.
~ Will Rogers

There's two theories to arguin' with a woman. Neither one works.
~ Will Rogers

Your mothers get mighty shocked at you girls nowadays, but in her day, her mother was just on the verge of sending her to reform school.
~ Will Rogers

I know black women in Tennessee who have worked all their lives, from the time they were twelve years old to the day they died. These women don't listen to the women's liberation rhetoric because they know that it's nothing but a bunch of white women who had certain life-styles and who want to change those life-styles. They say things like they don't want men opening doors for them anymore, and they don't want men lighting their cigarettes for them anymore. Big deal. Black women have been opening doors for themselves and lighting their own cigarettes for a couple centuries in this country. Black women don't quibble about things that are not important.
~ Wilma Rudolph, Wilma. Chap. 14 (1977)

Almost everybody allows himself or herself some entirely unjustifiable generalization on the subject of Woman. For my part I distrust all generalizations about women favorable or unfavorable, masculine and feminine, ancient and modern.
~ Bertrand Arthur William Russell

The relation of the mother to the child will have in the future to resemble more and more that which at present the father has, if women's lives are to be freed from unnecessary slavery.
~ Bertrand Arthur William Russell, The Conquest of Happiness (1930).

Most women have had the experience of being in a group of men, saying something absolutely profound, and getting no response at all, only to hear one of the men say the same thing a few minutes later and be immediately acknowledged as brilliant. The woman (who has been made invisible or nonexistent) starts to wonder what she did wrong, or what is wrong with her, and she says little or nothing from that point on (which may be the expected, hoped-for response).
~ Anne Wilson Schaef

A lion among ladies is a most dreadful thing.
~ William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act III, scene i

A woman moved is like a fountain troubled,
Muddy, ill-seeming, thick, bereft of beauty.
~ William Shakespeare, The Taming of the Shrew

Do you now know that I am a woman? when I think, I must speak.
~ William Shakespeare, As You Like It. Act III, scene ii

Frailty, thy name is woman!
~ William Shakespeare, Hamlet. Act I, scene ii

From women's eyes this doctrine I derive:
They sparkle still the right Promethean fire;
They are the books, the arts, the academes,
That show, contain, and nourish all the world.
~ William Shakespeare, Love's Labour's Lost. Act IV, scene iii

Her voice was ever soft,
Gentle and low, an excellent thing in woman.
~ William Shakespeare, King Lear

I know that a woman is a dish for the gods,
if the devil dress her not.
~ William Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra. Act V, scene ii

I thank God I am not a woman, to be touched with so many giddy offences as
He hath generally taxed their whole sex withal.
~ William Shakespeare, As You Like It

Kindness in women, not their beauteous looks,
Shall win my love.
~ William Shakespeare, The Taming of the Shrew. Act IV, scene ii

O tiger's heart wrapped in a woman's hide!
~ William Shakespeare, King Henry VI, Part III

One woman is fair, yet I am well; another is wise, yet I am well; another virtuous, yet I am well; but till all graces be in one woman, one woman shall not come in my grace.
~ William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing. Act II, scene iii

She has brown hair, and speaks small like a woman.
~ William Shakespeare, The Merry Wives of Windsor

She hath more hair than wit, and more faults than hairs, and more wealth than faults.
~ William Shakespeare, The Two Gentlemen of Verona. Act III, scene ii

The lady doth protest too much, methinks.
~ William Shakespeare, Hamlet. Act III, scene ii

The pleasing punishment that women bear.
~ William Shakespeare, The Comedy of Errors. Act I, scene i

The venom clamours of a jealous woman
Poisons more deadly than a mad dog's tooth.
~ William Shakespeare, The Comedy of Errors. Act V, scene i

Two women placed together makes cold weather.
~ William Shakespeare, King Henry VIII. Act I, scene iv

You know I am a woman, lacking wit.
~ William Shakespeare, King Henry VIII. Act III, scene i

Her cap, far whiter than the driven snow,
Emblems right meet of decency does yield.
~ William Shenstone, Poems upon Various Occasions (1737). The Schoolmistress

You can't raise the standard of women's morals by raising their pay envelope. It lies deeper than that.
~ William A. "Billy" Sunday

The book of female logic is blotted all over with tears, and Justice in their courts is forever in a passion.
~ William Makepeace Thackeray, The Virginians (1857-59). Chapter 4

Women like not only to conquer, but to be conquered.
~ William Makepeace Thackeray, The Virginians (1857-59). Chapter 5

Life means something -- momentous results depend upon the manner it is lived. The poorest and humblest girl can adorn it with a bright career.
~ William Makepeace Thayer, The Poor Girl and True Woman; Or, Elements of Woman's Success (1859). Chapter II. A Purpose

Now that women are jockeys, baseball umpires, atomic scientists, and business executives, maybe someday they can master parallel parking.
~ William E. "Bill" Vaughan

I hope those women in particular will come here and see that barriers have been overcome and obstacles removed, and that their service was meaningful, and they'll walk out that doorway on the other side with pride they've never known.
~ Brigadier General (ret.) Wilma L. Vaught, Opening Remarks at the Dedication Ceremony of the Women in Military Service for America Memorial, Arlington, VA (18 October 1997)

Blessings on the hand of women!
Angels guard its strength and grace,
In the palace, cottage, hovel,
Oh, no matter where the place. . . .
~ William Ross Wallace, The Hand That Rocks The Cradle Is The Hand That Rules The World

Women are strong enough to help the men to understand. They are the givers of life and they must now protect life.
~ Betty Williams, Speech to the People's Assembly at the Annual Peace March from Perugio to Assissi A People's United Nations (22 September 1995)

Hillary Clinton's great sin was that she left the nicely wallpapered domestic sphere with a slam of the door, took up public life on her own, leaving big feminist footprints all over the place, and without so much as an apology.
~ Patricia J. Williams, Village Voice (26 January 1993). Bewitched: The Demonization of Hillary Clinton

If you have been involved with or enjoyed the company of a female for 6 months to a year, then you can say that you know a woman. If you have been involved with or enjoyed the company of a female for 1 to 4 years, then you can say that you understand a woman. If you have been involved with or enjoyed the company of a female for 4 or more years, then you can say that you have learned from a woman.
~ Reginald Williams

If women ran the world we wouldn't have wars, just intense negotiations every 28 days.
~ Robin Williams

Women! Can't live with 'em, can't live with 'em!
~ Robin Williams

The Catholic Church has never really come to terms with women. What I object to is being treated either as Madonnas or Mary Magdalenes.
~ Shirley Williams, in Observer (22 March 1981).

All pretty girls are a trap, a pretty trap, and men expect them to be.
~ Thomas Lanier ("Tennessee") Williams, The Glass Menagerie (1944). Scene Six

There is nothing Madison Avenue can give us that will make us more beautiful women. We are beautiful because God created us that way.
~ Marianne Williamson, A Woman's Worth (1993).

If you can make a woman laugh you can do anything with her.
~ Nicol Williamson

Femaleness is at least as powerful as maleness. But it's rare, y'know.
~ Ann Wilson

Women's liberation will not be achieved until a woman can become paunchy and bald and still think that she's attractive to the opposite sex.
~ Earl Wilson

The definition of a beautiful woman is one who loves me.
~ Sloan Wilson

A perfect woman, nobly planned,
To warn, to comfort, and command;
And yet a Spirit still, and bright
With something of angelic light.
~ William Wordsworth, She Was a Phantom of Delight (1807).

Shalt show us how divine a thing
A woman may be made.
~ William Wordsworth, To a Young Lady, Dear Child of Nature

Women of quality are so civil, you can hardly distinguish love from good breeding.
~ William Wycherley, The Country Wife (1673). Act I, scene i

Women serve but to keep a man from better company.
~ William Wycherley, The Country Wife (1673). Act I, scene i

May God be praised for woman
That gives up all her mind,
A man may find in no man
a friendship of her kind.
~ William Butler Yeats, from The Wild Swans at Coole (1917). On Woman

The certainty that I shall see that lady
Leaning or standing or walking
In the first loveliness of womanhood,
And with the fervour of my youthful eyes,
Has set me muttering like a fool.
~ William Butler Yeats, from The Wild Swans at Coole (1917). Broken Dreams