Timeless quotes on women: Difference between revisions

The following is a list of quotes regarding the nature of women and the relations between the sexes from various eminent figures throughout history: political figures, sages, philosophers, scientists, artists, and writers.

==1,000–600 BC: The Bible (Old Testament)==

{{Quote|While I was still searching but not finding—I found one upright man among a thousand, but not one upright woman among them all.|Ecclesiastes 7:28<ref>https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ecclesiastes+7%3A28&version=NIV</ref>}}

{{Quote|Youths oppress my people, women rule over them. My people, your guides lead you astray; they turn you from the path.|Isaiah 3:12 <ref>https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Isaiah+3:12&version=NIV</ref>}}

{{Quote|In that day seven women will take hold of one man and say, “We will eat our own food and provide our own clothes;only let us be called by your name. Take away our disgrace!|Isaiah 4:1 <ref>https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Isaiah%204:1</ref>}}

== 570–510 BC: Pythagoras of Samos ==

{{quote|There is a good principle which created order, light, and man, and an evil principle which created chaos, darkness, and woman.}}

==800-700 BC: The Odyssey==

{{Quote|"So true is it that there is nothing more dread or more shameless than a woman who puts into her heart such deeds [...]"|''Homer. The Odyssey with an English Translation by A.T. Murray, PH.D. in two volumes'', Book XI.<ref>http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0136%3Abook%3D11%3Acard%3D404</ref>}}

==551–479 BC: Confucius==

{{Quote|"Women and people of low birth are very hard to deal with.  If you are friendly with them, they get out of hand, and if you keep your distance, they resent it."}}

==fl. 5th century BC: Bhartṛhari==

{{Quote|A firm bosom; sparkling eyes; a small mouth [...]  are characteristics of a woman which are always praised. But when we neglect the surface we find that the internal characteristics corresponding to these are hardness of heart, shifty eyes, a deceitful face, insecurity and cunning. When we bear in mind both the superficial and inward characteristics of a woman, we must declare that the one who should possess them can be dear only to the beasts of the field.|The Vairagya Sataka <ref>https://www.rarebooksocietyofindia.org/book_archive/196174216674_10154966946581675.pdf</ref>}}

{{Quote|A woman talks to one man, looks at a second, and thinks of a third.|The Sringa Sataka}}

{{Quote|Woman is the chain by which man is attached to the chariot of folly. ''Ibid''}}

==Circa 5th century BC: Acharanga Sutra==

{{Quote|"The world is overpowered by women (it has become their slave). O man! They (the slaves of women) say—"woman is the source of pleasure." This concept is the cause of grief and is instrumental in his (man's) passage through fondness, death, hell and rebirth as animals (reincarnation)."|Acharanga Sutra, Book I}}

==470–399 BC: Socrates==

{{Quote|"By all means, marry. If you get a good wife, you will be happy. If you get a bad one, you will be a philosopher."}}

{{Quote|Woman is adept at getting money for herself and will not easily let herself be deceived; she understands deceit too well herself.|Aristophanes, Ecclesiazusae, line 236-238}}

{{Quote|There is but one thing in the world worse than a shameless woman, and that's another woman.|Thesmorphoriazusae <ref>http://classics.mit.edu/Aristophanes/thesmoph.html</ref>}}

==423–348 BC: Plato==

{{Quote|Women are accustomed to creep into dark places, and when dragged out into the light they will exert their utmost powers of resistance ... therefore, as I said before, in most places they will not endure to have the truth spoken without raising a tremendous outcry.|Plato, Laws VI}}

{{Quote|"Is there any natural activity in which men are not better in all these respects than women? We need not waste time over weaving and various cooking operations, at which women are thought to be experts, and get badly laughed at if a man does them better.' 'It's quite true', he replied, 'that in general the one sex is much better at everything than the other. A good many women, it is true, are better than a good many men at a good many things. But the general rule is as you stated it."|''The Republic, Book V''}}

==c. 408-334 BC: Antiphanes==

{{Quote|One single thing I trust a woman saying.  To other statements no attention paying : "When I am dead, I won't return to grieve you."  Till death takes place, in naught else I'll believe you.|''Antiphanes: Fragment''.<ref>https://www.archive.org/stream/fragmentsgreekc00palegoog/fragmentsgreekc00palegoog_djvu.txt</ref>}}

{{Quote| What ! When you court concealment, will you tell the matter to a woman? Just as well tell all the criers in the public squares! Tis hard to say which of them louder blares.|''Antiphanes: Fragment''.}}

==384–322 BC: Aristotle==

{{Quote|"Woman may be said to be an inferior man."|''Poetics, XV''}}

{{Quote|"Again, the freedom in regard to women (referring to the customs of the Spartans) is detrimental both in regard to the purpose of the constitution and in regard to the happiness of the state. For just as man and wife are part of a household, it is clear that the state also is divided nearly in half into its male and female population, so that in all constitutions in which the position of the women is badly regulated one half of the state must be deemed to have been neglected in framing the law."|''Politics, Book II''}}

{{Quote|"Hence this characteristic existed among the Spartans, and in the time of their empire many things were controlled by the women; what difference does it make whether women rule, or the rulers are ruled by women? The result is the same."|''Politics, Book II''}}

==Circa 300 BC-400 AD: The Jataka Tales==

{{Quote|"Cursed be the dart of love that works men pain! Cursed be the land where women rule supreme!

Whomso they serve, for gold or for desire,  

They burn him up like fuel in the fire."|''Jataka 263'' <ref>https://www.wisdomlib.org/buddhism/book/jataka-tales-english/d/doc80427.html#note-e-46383</ref>}}

==254-184 BC: Titus Maccius Plautus==

{{Quote|There's no such thing as picking out the best woman: it's only a question of comparative badness. (Nam optuma nulla potest eligi; Alia alia pejor est.)|Plautus, Aulularia}}

==234–149 BC: Marcus Porcius Cato (Cato the Elder)==

{{Quote|Give the reins to a headstrong nature, to a creature that has not been tamed, and then hope that they will themselves set bounds to their licence if you do not do it yourselves. This  is  the  smallest  of  those  restrictions  which  have  been  imposed upon women by ancestral custom or by laws, and which they submit to  with  such  impatience.  What  they really  want  is  unrestricted freedom,  or  to  speak  the  truth, licence,  and  if  they  win  on  this occasion what is there that they will not attempt?|Livy, ''The Early History of Rome'' <ref>https://files.romanroadsstatic.com/materials/romans/historians/Livy_Early_History_Rome_1-0.pdf</ref>}}

{{Quote|Call  to  mind  all  the  regulations  respecting  women  by  which our ancestors curbed their licence and made them obedient to their husbands,  and  yet  in  spite  of  all  those  restrictions  you  can  scarcely hold  them  in ... From the moment that they become your fellows (equals) they will become your masters.|Livy, ''The Early History of Rome'' <ref>https://files.romanroadsstatic.com/materials/romans/historians/Livy_Early_History_Rome_1-0.pdf</ref>}}

==c. 200 BC: Bhagavad Gita==

{{Quote|“When irreligion is prominent in the family, O Krsna, the women of the family become polluted, and from the degradation of womanhood, O descendant of Vrsni, comes unwanted progeny.”|Bhagavad-Gita 1:40}}

==c. 85–43 BC: Publilius Syrus==

{{Quote|Woman is man's superior in cunning.|''Sententiae'' (The Moral Sayings of Pubilius Syrus)<ref>https://archive.org/stream/moralsayingspub00lymagoog/moralsayingspub00lymagoog_djvu.txt</ref>}}

{{Quote|"A virgin princess shared his room, but what escaped her, revealed itself at last as male: he raped her. So yes, it’s true that she was conquered by brute force, but that’s what she’d been wishing for, of course." (Ovid, ''The Art of Love'')}}

{{Quote|"“Girls praise a poem, but go for expensive presents. Any illiterate oaf can catch their eye provided he’s rich. Today is truly the Golden Age: gold buys honor, gold procures love.”}}

==Circa 80 AD: The Bible (New Testament)==

{{Quote|"But I want you to realize that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is man, and the head of Christ is God."|1 Corinthians 11:3 <ref>https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=I+Corinthians+11%3A3&version=NIV</ref>}}

{{Quote|"I also want the women to dress modestly, with decency and propriety, adorning themselves, not with elaborate hairstyles or gold or pearls or expensive clothes".|1 Timothy 2:9 <ref>https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Timothy%202:9</ref>}}

{{Quote|"Likewise, teach the older women to be reverent in the way they live, not to be slanderers or addicted to much wine, but to teach what is good."|Titus 2:3 <ref>https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Titus+2%3A3&version=NIV</ref>}}

==fl. 1st-2nd Century AD: Juvenal==

{{Quote|"For when danger comes in a right and honourable way, a woman's heart grows chill with fear; she cannot stand upon her trembling feet: but if she be doing a bold, bad thing, her courage fails not. For a husband to order his wife on board ship is cruelty: the bilge-water then sickens her, the heavens go round and round. But if she is running away with a lover, she feels no qualms: then she vomits over her husband; now she messes with the sailors, she roams about the deck, and delights in hauling at the hard ropes."|''Satire VI''}}

{{Quote|"Do you really expect the mother to teach her daughter honest ways—ways different from her own? Nay, the vile old woman finds a profit in bringing up her daughter to be vile."|''Ibid''}}

{{Quote|"I hear all this time the advice of my old friends—keep your women at home, and put them under lock and key. Yes, but who will watch the warders? Wives are crafty and will begin with them. High or low their passions are all the same."|''Ibid''}}

==155–240: Tertullian==

{{Quote|"Woman is a temple built upon a sewer."|De cultu feminarum (The Ornaments of Women)}}

{{Quote|"God maintained the order of each sex by dividing the business of life into two parts, and assigned the more necessary and beneficial aspects to the man and the less important, inferior matter to the woman."|''Homily 9 on First Timothy'' <ref>http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/230609.htm</ref>}}

{{Quote|"..the [female] sex is weak and fickle."|''The Kind of Women who ought to be taken as Wives'' <ref>https://christianhistoryinstitute.org/magazine/article/women-archives-wifes-domain/</ref>}}

==354–440: St Augustine of Hippo==

{{Quote|"I don’t see what sort of help woman was created to provide man with, if one excludes procreation. If woman is not given to man for help in bearing children, for what help could she be? To till the earth together? If help were needed for that, man would have been a better help for man. The same goes for comfort in solitude. How much more pleasure is it for life and conversation when two friends live together than when a man and a woman cohabitate?"|''De Genesi ad literam (The Literal Meaning of Genesis)'' 9.5.9 <ref>De Genesi ad literam (The Literal Meaning of Genesis) 9.5.9</ref>}}

{{Quote|" ... woman was given to man, woman who was of small intelligence and who perhaps still lives more in accordance with the promptings of the inferior flesh than by superior reason. Is this why the apostle Paul does not attribute the image of God to her?"|''De Genesi ad literam Book 11.42}}

{{Quote|"Watch out that she does not twist and turn you for the worse. What difference does it make whether it is in a wife or in a mother, it is still Eve the temptress that we must beware of in any woman."|''Letter to Laetus'' (Letter 243.10)}}

==570–632: Muhammad==

{{Quote|"I was shown Hell and I have never seen anything more terrifying than it. And I saw that the majority of its people are women.” They said, “Why, O Messenger of Allah?” He said, “Because of their ingratitude (kufr).” It was said, “Are they ungrateful to Allah?” He said, “They are ungrateful to their companions (husbands) and ungrateful for good treatment. If you are kind to one of them for a lifetime then she sees one (undesirable) thing in you, she will say, ‘I have never had anything good from you.’” (Narrated by al-Bukhari, 1052).}}

{{Quote|"When the Prophet heard the news that the people of the Persia had made the daughter of Khosrau their Queen (ruler), he said, "Never will succeed such a nation as makes a woman their ruler." (Narrated by al-Bukhari, 7099).}}

==1016–1041: Naropa==

{{Quote|"Countless are woman's defects. My elephantine mind has fallen. Into the poisonous swamp of guile. So I must renounce the world."}}

==1225–1274: Thomas Aquinas==

{{Quote|"As regards the individual nature, woman is defective and misbegotten, for the active power of the male seed tends to the production of a perfect likeness in the masculine sex; while the production of a woman comes from defect in the active power."|''Summa Theologica'', Vol. I, Q. 92, Art. 1, Reply to Objection 1. <ref>http://www.newadvent.org/summa/1092.htm</ref>}}

{{Quote|"So by such a kind of subjection woman is naturally subject to man, because in man the discretion of reason predominates.|''Summa Theologica'', Volume 1, Q. 92, Art. 1, Reply to Objection 2.}}

==c. 1340s-1400: Geoffrey Chaucer==

{{Quote|"And now of my fifth husband will I tell.

Gave of his love most sparingly to me.|''Canterbury Tales'': The Wife of Bath's Prologue, lines 509-520<ref>http://www.librarius.com/canttran/wftltrfs.htm</ref>}}

{{Quote|"We women have, if I am not to lie,

All this knows every woman who is wise.|''Canterbury Tales'': The Wife of Bath's Prologue, lines 521-530}}

{{Quote|"My liege lady, generally," said he,

Or widow that denied the thing he said ....|''Canterbury Tales'': The Wife of Bath's Tale, lines 1043-1050<ref>http://www.librarius.com/canttran/wftltrfs.htm</ref>}}

==c. 1430-1505: Heinrich Kramer==

{{Quote|"(Woman) is more carnal than a man, as is clear from her many carnal abominations. And it should be noted that there was a defect in the formation of the first woman, since she was formed from a bent rib, that is, a rib of the breast, which is bent as it were in a contrary direction to a man. And since through this defect she is an imperfect animal, she always deceives."|''Malleus Malificarum (The Hammer of the Witches)''}}

{{Quote|"If we inquire, we find that nearly all the kingdoms of the world have been overthrown by women. Troy, which was a prosperous kingdom, was, for the rape of one woman, Helen, destroyed, and many thousands of Greeks slain. The kingdom of the Jews suffered much misfortune and destruction through the accursed Jezebel, and her daughter Athaliah, queen of Judah, who caused her son's sons to be killed, that on their death she might reign herself; yet each of them was slain. The kingdom of the Romans endured much evil through Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt, that worst of women. And so with others. Therefore it is no wonder if the world now suffers through the malice of women.|''ibid''}}

{{Quote|"Let us consider also her gait, posture, and habit, in which is vanity of vanities. There is no man in the world who studies so hard to please the good God as even an ordinary woman studies by her vanities to please men."|''ibid''}}

==1469-1527: Niccolò Machiavelli==

{{Quote|"For my part I consider that it is better to be adventurous than cautious, because fortune is a woman, and if you wish to keep her under it is necessary to beat and ill-use her; and it is seen that she allows herself to be mastered by the adventurous rather than by those who go to work more coldly. She is, therefore, always, woman-like, a lover of young men, because they are less cautious, more violent, and with more audacity command her. "|''The Prince''}}

{{Quote|"What defects women have, we must check them for in private, gently by word of mouth, for woman is a frail vessel.|''Table-Talk'', DCXXXVII}}

{{Quote|"“For woman seems to be a creature somewhat different from man, in that she has dissimilar members, a varied form and a mind weaker than man. Although Eve was a most excellent and beautiful creature [...] yet she was a woman. For as the sun is more glorious than the moon, though the moon is a most glorious body, so woman, though she was a most beautiful work of God, yet she did not equal the glory of the male creature.”|''Commentary on Genesis'', Chapter 2, Part V, 27b. <ref>http://www.gutenberg.org/files/48193/48193-h/48193-h.htm#sect21</ref>}}

==1509–1564: John Calvin==

{{Quote|"But woman can never be the best governor, by reason that she being spoiled of the spirit, can never attain to that degree, to be called or judged a good governor. Because in the nature of all woman, lurketh such vices, as in good governors are not tolerable."}}

{{Quote|"Thus the woman, who had perversely exceeded her proper bounds, is forced back to her own position. She had, indeed, previously been subject to her husband, but that was a liberal and gentle subjection; now, however, she is cast into servitude."}}

{{Quote|On the first post-resurrection appearance of Jesus to women rather than to men: "I consider this was done by way of reproach, because they [the men] had been so tardy and sluggish to believe. And indeed, they deserve not only to have women for their teachers, but even oxen and asses ... Yet it pleased the Lord, by means of those weak and contemptible vessels, to give display of his power."|Commentary on the Gospel of John}}

==1547-1616: Miguel Cervantes==

{{Quote|"“That is the natural way of women,” said Don Quixote, “to scorn the one

double dealing, their broken promises, their unkept pledges, and in short the want of reflection they show in fixing their affections and

inclinations."|''Don Quixote''}}

==1564-1616: William Shakespeare==

{{Quote|"Frailty, the name is WOMAN! |''Hamlet'' Act I, sc. 2.}}

{{Quote|"Such duty as the subject owes the prince,

When they are bound to serve, love, and obey." |''The Taming of the Shrew'' Act V, Sc. 2. <ref>https://www.opensourceshakespeare.org/views/plays/play_view.php?WorkID=tamingshrew&Act=5&Scene=2&Scope=scene</ref>}}

{{Quote|"The wiles and guiles that women work,

Dissembled with an outward show,

A woman's nay doth stand for nought?"| ''The Passionate Pigrim'', 340. <ref>https://www.opensourceshakespeare.org/views/poems/poem_view.php?WorkID=passionatepilgrim</ref>}}

{{Quote|"And let not women’s weapons, water-drops,<br />Stain my man’s cheeks! …<br />No, I’ll not weep.<br />I have full cause of weeping, but this heart<br />Shall break into a hundred thousand flaws<br />Or ere I’ll weep."|King Lear}}

{{Quote|"O devil, devil!

If that the earth could teem with woman's tears,

Each drop she falls would prove a crocodile.

Out of my sight!"| (''Othello'', 4.1.2685) <ref>https://www.opensourceshakespeare.org/views/plays/play_view.php?WorkID=othello&Act=4&Scene=1&Scope=scene/poem_view.php?WorkID=passionatepilgrim</ref>}}

==1588-1679: Thomas Hobbes==

{{Quote|"Forme ([[beauty|looks]]) is Power; because being a promise of Good, it recommendeth men to the favour of women and strangers."|''Leviathan''}}

Disturbances on earth through female snares."|''Paradise Lost'', Chapter X: 864-878.}}

{{Quote|"But still I see the tenor of Man's woe

By wisdom, and superior gifts received."|''Paradise Lost'', Chapter XI: 632-636.}}

==1613–1680: François de La Rochefoucauld==

{{Quote|"The intellect of the generality of women serves more to fortify their folly than their reason."}}

{{Quote|"All women are flirts, but some are restrained by shyness, and others by sense"}}

==1652-1685: Thomas Otway==

{{Quote|"Be a true woman, rail, protest my wrongs. Resolve to hate him, and yet love him still ..."|''The Orphan''}}

Destructive, damnable, deceitful, woman..."|''ibid''}}

{{Quote|""Who trusts his heart with woman 's surely lost: You were made fair on purpose to undo us. Whilst greedily we snatch th' alluring bait,  

And ne're distrust the poyson that it hides ...|''ibid''}}

==1688-1744: Alexander Pope==

{{Quote|"NOTHING so true as what you once let fall, Most women have no characters at all."|''Moral Essays: EPISTLE II, of The Characters of Women''<ref>https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/ecco/004780226.0001.000/1:4?rgn=div1;view=fulltext</ref>}}

A teeming mistress, but a barren bride."|''ibid''}}

{{Quote|

"Who breaks with her (woman), provokes revenge from hell,

Oblige her, and she'll hate you while you live ..."|''ibid''}}

{{Quote|"Men, some to bus'ness, some to pleasure take;

But ev'ry woman is at heart a rake ..."|''ibid''}}

==1724–1804: Immanuel Kant==

{{Quote|"Woman has a superior feeling for the beautiful, so far as it pertains to herself".}}

==1744: Man Superior to Woman by 'A Gentleman'==

{{Quote|"Hitherto, the women, conscious of their own inabilities, have cheerfully acknowledged the authority which wisdom gives to men over them, content with the soft dominion which love secures to them over the men ... But the case must necessarily alter from the minute that sex forgets its allegiance to us. Once the women presume to call in question the great duty of vassalage to us, it must be time to withdraw our hearts from their power. They can no longer be safe in the custody of such women as refuse to submit their heads to our authority."|''Man Superior to Woman;or, The Natural Right of the Men to Sovereign Authority Over the Women, Asserted and Defended.''<ref>http://www.theabsolute.net/minefield/mansup.pdf</ref>}}

{{Quote|"The difference between men and women is like that between animals and plants. Men correspond to animals, while women correspond to plants because their development is more placid and the principle that underlies it is the rather vague unity of feeling. When women hold the helm of government, the state is at once in jeopardy, because women regulate their actions not by the demands of universality but by arbitrary inclinations and opinions.|''Elements of the Philosophy of Right''}}

{{Quote|"While singular individuality is thus mingled into the woman’s relationship, her ethical life is not pure. However, insofar as she is ethical, singular individuality is a matter of indifference, and the wife dispenses with the moment of cognizing herself as this self in an other."|''Phenomenology of Spirit''}}

==1769–1821: Napoleon Bonaparte==

{{Quote|"We treat women too well, and in this way have spoiled everything. We have done every wrong by raising them to our level. Truly the Oriental nations have more mind and sense than we in declaring the wife to be the actual property of the husband. In fact nature has made woman our slave ... Woman is given to man that she may bear children ... consequently she is his property."}}

{{Quote|"Nothing is more imperious ... than weakness when it knows it is backed by strength; look at women".}}

==1788–1860: [[Arthur Schopenhauer]]==

{{Quote|"That woman is by nature intended to obey is shown by the fact that every woman who is placed in the unnatural position of absolute independence at once attaches herself to some kind of man, by whom she is controlled and governed; this is because she requires a master. If she, is young, the man is a lover; if she is old, a priest."}}

{{Quote|"Because women in truth exist entirely for the propagation of the race, and their destiny ends here, they live more for the species than for the individual, and in their hearts take the affairs of the species more seriously than those of the individual."}}

{{Quote|"The nobler and more perfect a thing is, the later and slower it is in arriving at maturity. A man reaches the maturity of his reasoning powers and mental faculties hardly before the age of twenty-eight; a woman at eighteen. And then, too, in the case of woman, it is only reason of a sort — very niggard in its dimensions. That is why women remain children their whole life long; never seeing anything but what is quite close to them, cleaving to the present moment, taking appearance for reality, and preferring trifles to matters of the first importance."}}

==1802-1870: Alexander Dumas, père==

{{Quote|"But so it is; a woman will often, from mere wilfulness, prefer that which is dangerous to that which is safe. Therefore, in my opinion, my dear baron, the best and easiest way is to leave them to their fancies, and allow them to act as they please, and then, if any mischief follows, why, at least, they have no one to blame but themselves."|''The Count of Monte Cristo''}}

{{Quote|'' Oh, woman! woman! thou shouldst have few sins<br />Of thine own to answer for! Thou art the author<br />Of such a book of follies in a man,<br />That it would need the tears of all the angels<br />To blot the record out!

|''ibid''}}

==1812-1870: Charles Dickens==

{{Quote|"A man is lucky if he is the first love of a woman. A woman is lucky if she is the last love of a man."|''The Mystery of Edward Drood''}}

{{Quote|"Women can always put things in fewest words. Except when it's blowing up; and then they lengthens it out."|''Oliver Twist''}}

{{Quote|"One can't be troubled, you know; and WE know, Mr. Weller—we, who are men of the world—that a good uniform must work its way with the women, sooner or later."|''The Pickwick Papers''}}

==1813–1855: Søren Kierkegaard==

{{Quote|"For my part, if I were a woman, I had rather be a woman in the orient where I would be a slave, for to be a slave, neither more nor less, is at any rate something definite, in comparison with being . . . nothing whatever."}}

{{Quote|"Man can never be so cruel as a woman. Consult mythologies, fables, folktakes, and you will find this view confirmed. If a natural principle is to be described, whose mercilessness knows no limits, it will always be a feminine nature."}}

{{Quote|"When God created Eve, He let a deep sleep fall over Adam; for woman is the dream of man."}}

==1819–1901: Queen Victoria==

{{Quote|"I am most anxious to enlist everyone who can speak or write to join in checking this mad, wicked folly of ‘Women’s Rights,’ with all its attendant horrors, on which her poor feeble sex is bent, forgetting every sense of womanly feelings and propriety. Feminists ought to get a good whipping. Were woman to ‘unsex’ themselves by claiming equality with men, they would become the most hateful, heathen and disgusting of beings and would surely perish without male protection."}}

==1839–1925: Nakahara Nantenbō (Tōjū)==

==1844–1900: [[Friedrich Nietzsche]]==

{{Quote|"From the beginning, nothing has been more alien, repugnant, and hostile to woman than truth—her great art is the lie, her highest concern is mere appearance and beauty"}}

{{Quote|"If the discontented, bitter and grumbling-heads were denied reproduction, the earth could be enchanted into a garden of happiness. -This one rule belongs in a practical philosophy for the female sex."|''Human, All Too Human''}}

{{Quote|"Reflect on the whole history of women: do they not ''have ''to be<br />first of all and above all else actresses? Listen to physicians who<br />have hypnotized women; finally, love them—let yourself be<br />“hypnotized by them”! What is always the end result? That<br />they “put on something” even when they take off everything.<br />Woman is so artistic."|The Gay Science}}

==1849–1912: August Strindberg==

{{Quote|"Every healthy man is a woman hater—yet he cannot survive if he does not ally himself with his enemy."}}

{{Quote|"To love is an active verb, and woman is a passive noun. He loves—she is loved."}}

{{Quote|"Women amount to nothing by themselves but mean everything to us, and are everything for us. They are our honor and our shame; our greatest joy, and our deepest pain and distress; our redemption and our fall; our reward and our punishment; our strength and our weakness."}}

==1854-1925: E. Belfort Bax==

{{Quote|"And while male man has ceased to represent a sex, in developing into the human personality complete up to date; woman still represents a sexual principle; [https://incels.wiki/w/Sex_and_Character_(book)#The_nature_of_woman her personality centres in sex, in fact she still remains for the most part, an amplified, beautified, embellished sexual organ." ]|''Some Heterodox Notes on the Women Question''<ref>https://www.marxists.org/archive/bax/1887/07/woman-question.htm</ref>}}

{{Quote|"[the idea that] women are, and have been in the past, grievously oppressed by men, is, on one side of it wholly false, and on the other true only to a very limited extent ... Now, as a matter of fact, at no period of the world’s history has the female sex constituted a disinherited or oppressed class. Women may have been liable to certain disabilities. But these have been always compensated and often more than compensated by exemptions and special privileges. Economically, although dependent on men, women have for the most part had the “lion’s share at the banquet of life.”|''ibid''}}

{{Quote|"As a friend intimately acquainted with current political life recently observed to me, what these people want to get the suffrage for is not to further any broad social views whatever, but simply to get infamous laws passed against men as men. This I believe to be true. What they really want is the erection of a sex domination.|''ibid''}}

==1854-1900: Oscar Wilde==

{{Quote|"A man's face is his autobiography. A woman's face is her work of fiction."}}

{{Quote|"Women love us for our defects. If we have enough of them, they will forgive us everything, even our intellects."}}

{{Quote|"Men always want to be a woman's first love—women like to be a man's last romance.}}

{{Quote|"The only way to behave to a woman is to make love to her if she is pretty, and to someone else if she is plain."|''The Importance of Being Earnest''}}

{{Quote|"A man can be happy with any woman, as long as he does not love her."|''The Portrait of Dorian Grey''}}

==1856-1939: Sigmund Freud==

{{Quote|"Women oppose change, receive passively, and add nothing of their own."}}

{{Quote|"Women are supposed to have no political power; but clever women put stupid husbands into parliament and into ministerial offices quite easily."}}

==1874-1936 G.K Chesterton==

{{Quote|"A woman uses her intelligence to find reasons to support her intuition."}}

{{Quote|"All women dress to be noticed—gross and vulgar women to be grossly and vulgarly noticed, wise and modest women to be wisely and modestly noticed."}}

{{Quote|"Most of the women were of the kind vaguely called emancipated, and professed some protest against male supremacy. Yet these new women would always pay to a man the extravagant compliment which no ordinary woman ever pays to him, that of listening while he is talking."|''The Man Who Was Thursday''}}

==1875–1961: Carl Gustav Jung==

{{Quote|"No one can evade the fact, that in taking up a masculine calling, studying and working in a man's way, woman is doing something not wholly in agreement with, if not directly injurious to, her feminine nature."}}

==1880–1903: [[Otto Weininger]]==

{{Quote|"The well-known phrase, “Women have no character,” really means the same thing. Personality and individuality (intelligible), ego and soul, will and (intelligible) character, all these are different expressions of the same actuality, an actuality the male of mankind attains, the female lacks."| ''Ibid''}}

{{Quote|"How can I accuse woman after all, for serving man? Man wants nothing other than her. There is no man who would not be happy when he exercises sexual effect upon a woman. Hatred against woman is always only the not yet overcome hatred of one's own sexuality".| ''Ibid''}}

==1880-1936: Oswald Spengler==

{{Quote|"Quite animal still is the trickery of woman towards man, and equally so the peasant's shrewdness in obtaining small advantages - both differing in no wise from the slyness of the fox, both consisting in the ability to see into the secret of the victim at one glance."|''Ibid''}}

==1880–1956: H. L. Mencken==

{{Quote|"The first-rate woman is a realist. She sees clearly that, in a world dominated by second-rate men, the special capacities of the second-rate man are esteemed above all other capacities and given the highest rewards, and she endeavors to get her share of those rewards by marrying a second-rate man at the top of his class".}}

{{Quote|"A woman simply is, but a man must become."}}

{{Quote|"Men are run ragged by female sexuality all their lives. From the beginning of his life to the end, no man ever fully commands any woman. It's an illusion. Men are pussy-whipped. And they know it. That's what the strip clubs are about; not woman as victim, not woman as slave, but woman as goddess."}}

== References ==

<references />

== External links ==

* [https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.553581/page/n471/mode/2up The Pocket Book Of Quotations]

* [https://archive.org/details/dli.bengal.10689.3103/page/n2555/mode/2up The Home Book Of Quotations - 8th ed.]

* [https://archive.org/details/carletonshandbo00cogoog/page/n202/mode/2up Carleton's hand-book of popular quotations]

==See also==

* [[History of female sex-favoritism]]