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Timeless quotes on women: Difference between revisions
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{{Quote|"Man, created by Nature to rule, was endowed with a soul equal to the task. His body is strong, his mind vigorous, and his heart resolute; his understanding is fitted for the most sublime speculations, and his person for the most hardy and important exercises ... If there are a few degenerate creatures, who answer not this character, they are such only as by conversing with womankind, putting on their foibles, and affecting to be like them, degrade themselves of manhood, commence intellectual eunuchs, and, though they are, deserve no more to be reputed of the same sex with us.|''ibid''}} | {{Quote|"Man, created by Nature to rule, was endowed with a soul equal to the task. His body is strong, his mind vigorous, and his heart resolute; his understanding is fitted for the most sublime speculations, and his person for the most hardy and important exercises ... If there are a few degenerate creatures, who answer not this character, they are such only as by conversing with womankind, putting on their foibles, and affecting to be like them, degrade themselves of manhood, commence intellectual eunuchs, and, though they are, deserve no more to be reputed of the same sex with us.|''ibid''}} | ||
{{Quote|"Let women then give up their claim to an equality with the men, and be content with the humble station which Nature has allotted them. And since neither their capacity for head nor their dispositions of heart can lift them to emulate, let them apply their little talents at least to imitate us: That pleased with the pretty mimics of ourselves, we may venture to place them in our bosoms without fear of cherishing a viper there."|''ibid''}} | {{Quote|"Let women then give up their claim to an equality with the men, and be content with the humble station which Nature has allotted them. And since neither their capacity for head nor their dispositions of heart can lift them to emulate, let them apply their little talents at least to imitate us: That pleased with the pretty mimics of ourselves, we may venture to place them in our bosoms without fear of cherishing a viper there."|''ibid''}} | ||
==1753-1821: Joseph de Maistre== | |||
{{Quote|"A woman can only be superior as a woman; as soon as she wants to emulate man, she is nothing but an ape"|''Letter to Constance de Maistre''<ref>https://libertas.co/wiki/Lettre_%C3%A0_sa_fille_-_Joseph_de_Maistre</ref>}} | |||
{{Quote|"It is not the mediocrity of women's education which makes their weakness; it is their weakness which necessarily causes their mediocrity"|''ibid''}} | |||
{{Quote|"To overcome oneself, to submit to circumstances, is a duty for everyone, but especially for women. [...] A man, my dear child, is an animal. Unfortunately for your sex, extremely proud; but happily for this same sex, extremely foolish. It is necessary to use his foolishness against his pride. In ceding skilfully and with grace, it is necessary to make him believe that he will always be king. Then he is content to allow himself to be led. As soon as a woman cedes the sceptre, it is given back to her immediately. That is all there is to the catechism of this world. Never forget it"|''ibid''}} | |||
{{Quote|"In a word, all legislation has taken more or less severe precautions against women; in our time they are still slaves under the Koran and beasts of burden among the savages. Only the Gospel has been able to raise them to the level of men by making them better; it alone has been able to proclaim the rights of women after having given birth to them, and given birth to them by establishing them in the woman’s heart, the most active and powerful instrument for good as well as for evil. Extinguish the influence of the divine law in a Christian country, or even weaken it to a certain point, by allowing the freedom that is its consequence for women to subsist, and soon you will see this noble and touching freedom degenerate into shameful licence. They will become the deadly instruments of a universal corruption that will attack the vital parts of the state in a short time. It will fall into decay, and its gangrenous decrepitude will be at once its shame and horror"|.''St. Petersburg dialogues: Or conversations on the temporal government of providence'' (R. A. Lebrun, Trans. & Ed 1993).<br> | |||
(Original work published 1821)}} | |||
==1762-1814: Johann Gottlieb Fichte== | ==1762-1814: Johann Gottlieb Fichte== | ||
{{Quote|"The female sex stands one step lower in the arrangement of nature than the male sex; the female sex is the object of a power of the male sex, and no other arrangement was possible if both sexes were to be connected. But at the same time both sexes, as moral beings, ought to be equal. To make this possible, a new faculty, utterly wanting in the male sex, had to be given to the female sex. This faculty is the form in which the sexual impulse appears to woman (i.e. passive and indirect ''Ed.''), whereas to man it appears in its true form. [...] Man may court, but not woman. [...] If some women claim that they should have the same right to court as men, we would answer: 'No one disputes you that right, why then, do you not make use of it?'".|Fichte, JG 1889, ''The Science of Rights'', trans. AE Kroeger, Trübner & Co., London, pp. 396-397.}} | {{Quote|"The female sex stands one step lower in the arrangement of nature than the male sex; the female sex is the object of a power of the male sex, and no other arrangement was possible if both sexes were to be connected. But at the same time both sexes, as moral beings, ought to be equal. To make this possible, a new faculty, utterly wanting in the male sex, had to be given to the female sex. This faculty is the form in which the sexual impulse appears to woman (i.e. passive and indirect ''Ed.''), whereas to man it appears in its true form. [...] Man may court, but not woman. [...] If some women claim that they should have the same right to court as men, we would answer: 'No one disputes you that right, why then, do you not make use of it?'".|Fichte, JG 1889, ''The Science of Rights'', trans. AE Kroeger, Trübner & Co., London, pp. 396-397.}} | ||