A Small Sample from WOMAN - The Compilation
on The Thinking Man's CDROM
- It takes a man a lifetime to find out about one particular woman; but if he puts in, say ten years, industrious and curious, he can acquire the general rudiments of the sex.
- For a man to pretend to understand women is bad manners; for him really to understand them is bad morals.
- Men dislike women who don't understand them, and women dislike men who do.
- Even when a man understands a woman, he can't believe it.
- Woman wishes to wish away the differences between the sexes. - but then, that is the nature of woman.
- Men commit actions; women commit gestures. - Phyllis Chesler
- Men and women are two different species, descended from different animals.
- Mankind, woman unkind.
- Men work; women shop.
- A man has only one aim in life. A woman has three, all contradictory.
- Some men are different. All women are alike.
- In Men, we various Ruling Passions find;
In Women, two almost divide the kind;
Those, only fixed, they first or last obey,
The Love of Pleasure, and the Love of Sway.- Men are not troubled to hear a man dispraised, because they know, though he be naught, there's worth in others; but women are mightily troubled to hear any of them spoken against, as if the sex itself were guilty of some unworthiness.
- For story and experience tell us,
That man grows old and women jealous;
Both would their little ends secure:
He sighs for freedom, she for power.
His wishes tend abroad to roam.
And hers, to domineer at home.- There are two kinds of women: those who want power in the world, and those who want power in bed. - Jacqueline Onassis
- A woman who will not feign submission can never make a man happy.
- Women are neither equal nor different to men - they are inferior. Women rarely if ever organize themselves effectively because they are unable to think logically.
- The greatest problem with women is how to contrive that they should seem our equals.
- Woman's equality to man is not a claim . . . rather a concession.
- But, perhaps, someone will ask, whether women are under men's authority by nature or institution? For if it has been by mere institution, then we had no reason compelling us to exclude women from government. But if we consult experience itself, we shall find that the origin of it is in their weakness. For there has never been a case of men and women reigning together, but wherever on the earth men are found, there we see that men rule, and women are ruled, and that on this plan, both sexes live in harmony. But on the other hand, the Amazons, who are reported to have held rule of old, did not suffer men to stop in their country, but reared only their female children, killing the males to whom they gave birth. But if by nature women were equal to men, and were equally distinguished by force of character and ability, in which human power and therefore human right chiefly consist; surely among nations so many and different some would be found, where both sexes rule alike, and others, where men are ruled by women, and so brought up, that they can make less use of their abilities. And since this is nowhere the case, one may assert with perfect propriety, that women have not by nature equal right with men: but that they necessarily give way to men, and that thus it cannot happen, that both sexes should rule alike, much less that men should be ruled by women. - [from Tractatus Politicus by Baruch Spinoza]
- Men, some to business, some to pleasure take;
But every woman is at heart a rake.- Women never have young minds. They are born three thousand years old.
- Girls we love for what they are: Young men for what they promise to be.
- It is only rarely that one can see in a little boy the promise of a man, but one can almost always see in a little girl the threat of a woman.
- She is like a stone on the hilltop, difficult to be moved. Yet when she is once started she goeth fast and far; no man knoweth her end. She believeth that ALL men are vain and easy to be flattered. Her heart is older than her head; yea, her emotion is the mother of her reason. She desireth many things, and she is happy till she getteth them. TWO things she holdeth dear, mystery and mastery.
- A man gets what he wants by acting smart; a woman, by playing dumb.
- Why is it we never hear of a self-made woman?
- Woman submits to her fate; man makes his.
- Fathers compete with their sons, but mothers devour their daughters.
- Because she is conscious of her weakness she destroys what is weak. After coition she enchains man and treats him like a child; after procreation she enslaves her children and maintains them in a condition of absolute dependence.
- The main difference between men and women is that men are lunatics and women are idiots.
- God made woman beautiful and foolish; beautiful, that man might love her; and foolish, that she might love him.
- There are two kinds of women: those who wish to marry, and those who haven't the slightest intention not to.
- To a single woman men are either dates, potential dates, or date substitutes.
- It is still the case that women believe a caress to be better than a career.
- The best couturiers, hairdressers, home designers and cooks are men. I suspect that were it biologically possible men would make better mothers. - Ida Alexa Ross Wylie
- What they love to yield they would often rather have stolen. Rough seduction delights them; the boldness of near rape is a compliment.
- She whom a sudden assault has taken by storm is pleased, and counts the audacity as a compliment. But she who, when she might have been compelled, departs untouched, though her looks feign joy, will yet be sad.
- Some girls are like horses, very independent. They have never been controlled by anybody. But if you can break them in, they are very grateful, as all women are.
- Woman is the same as horses: two wills act in opposition inside her. With one will, she wants to subject herself utterly. With the other, she wants to bolt, and pitch her rider to perdition.
- In truth, women of today, like the Valkyries of old, want anything but to win their fight for independence: the harder they fight, the more desperately they yearn for a man to be strong enough - for their man to be strong enough to limit them and to keep them from venting their destructiveness.
- Love is the victim's response to the rapist. - [An American Feminist].
- Any woman will marry any man that bothers her enough.
- A wise woman never yields by appointment. It should always be an unforeseen happiness.
- The difference between rape and seduction is salesmanship.
- Women sometimes forgive a man who presses an opportunity, but never a man who misses one.
- Sexual shyness in a man excites the desire of dissolute women, but arouses contempt in decent ones.
- There are women who offer their bodies as though they were bestowing some inestimable gift upon you.
- A woman never forgets her sex. She would rather talk with a man than an angel, any day.
- If men knew all that women think, they'd be twenty times more daring.
- The soul of a woman lives in love.
- Where love is absent there can be no woman.
- Love makes intelligent beings depressed and flat. Only women, ostriches and monkeys are made happy by love. - [Eeva-Lisa Manner]
- Love makes the wisest man a fool, and the most foolish woman, a sage.
- By "woman" is meant sensuality itself, which is well signified by woman, since in woman this naturally prevails.
- I like them fluffy - I know it's bad taste -
With fluffy soft looks and a flower at the waist,
With golden hair flying, like mist round the moon
And lips that seem sighing, "You must kiss me soon,"
Not huffy, or stuffy, not tiny or tall,
But fluffy, just fluffy, with no brains at all.- I've got a girlfriend with ribbons in her hair.
Now what could be better than that?
[From "Stop making sense" by Talking Heads]- I for one venerate a petticoat. - Lord Byron
- If God had not created woman, he would not have created flowers.
- What most men desire is a virgin who is a whore.
- O woman, you are not merely the handiwork of God, but also of men; these are ever endowing you with beauty from their own hearts. . . . You are one-half woman and one-half dream.
- A man at his desk in a room with a closed door is a man at work. A woman at a desk in any room is available. - Betty Rollin
- There's only one way to get on for a woman, and that's to please men. That is what women think men are for.
- She gets her living by getting a husband. He gets his wife by getting a living.
- Women believe that all the money in the world would have no meaning without women.
- No woman ever found a rich man ugly.
- Little girls are won with dolls; big girls with dollars.
- Every man's lament: so many women . . . so little cash.
- Americans worship two gods - dollars and dames - and the dollars are for the dames. The statue of Liberty is a woman.
- Sexually, woman is nature's contrivance for perpetuating its highest achievement. Sexually, man is woman's contrivance for fulfilling nature's behest in the most economical way.
- Nature intended women to be our slaves; . . . they are our property, we are not theirs. They belong to us, just as a tree that bears fruit belongs to the gardener. What a mad idea to demand equality for women! . . . Women are nothing but machines for producing children. - [Napoleon Bonaparte]
- Biologically and temperamentally, I believe women were made to be concerned first and foremost with child care, husband care and home care. - [Benjamin Spock]
- A woman's place is in the mall.
- The only time a woman has a true orgasm is when she's shopping. Every other time she's faking it. It's common courtesy.
- Women: an infinity of cosmetics.
- Men say knowledge is power; women think dress is power.
- It takes two to make a woman into a sex object.
- Women who are not vain about their clothes are often vain about not being vain about their clothes.
- Women are the decorative sex. They never have anything to say, but they say it charmingly.
- Woman's first duty is to her dressmaker. What the second duty is no one has yet discovered.
- There are few women whose worth lasts longer than their beauty.
- One of the fathers, if I am rightly informed, has defined a woman to be an animal that delights in finery. I have . . . observed, that in all ages they have been more careful than men to adorn that part of the head which we generally call the outside.
- Woman strives for loveliness, man for dignity.
- Beauty is the wisdom of women.
Wisdom is the beauty of men.- Men want to be the kind of persons that people look up to.
Girls want to be the kind that people look around at.- Many women would swap brains for beauty and think they were getting the best of the bargain.
- The average girl would rather have beauty than brains because she knows that the average man can see much better than he can think.
- "After men, monkeys have the most intelligence," says an author. Others will argue that women do.
- Smart men are smarter than they look; smart women look smarter than they are.
- The heart is the whole of women, who are guided by nothing else: and it has so much to say, even with men . . . that it triumphs in every struggle with the understanding.
- A young lady who thinks is like a young man who rouges.
- To find fault with a woman's intellect you must first find her intellect.
- Women have simple tastes. They can get pleasure out of the conversation of children in arms and men in love.
- A man, conceivably, could adjust to the knowledge that he was at a higher level than those around him, although no rational man could possibly enjoy that perspective; but to a woman it would be unbearable.
- Essentially feminine, she was able to chatter but say nothing, ask questions and require no reply.
- Women can write more interestingly than men on the really important topics of civilization: dress, food and furniture.
- She wavers, she hesitates; in a word, she is a woman.
- Woman's one notable invention: Perpetual emotion.
- Women are always eagerly on the lookout for any emotion.
- Women: picturesque protests against the mere existence of common sense.
- A woman's hopes are woven of sunbeams; a shadow annihilates them.
- No wonder women live longer than men - look how long they remain girls.
- You bring up your girls to be ornaments and then complain of their frivolity.
- She affected to establish the character of a woman, thoughtless through wit, indiscreet through simplicity, but religious on principle.
- People who give their letters large bodies but little else live for the present. They enjoy gossip and like being socially involved. They are not over interested in making money. Women tend to write like this.- [Jane Paterson "Know Yourself Through Your Handwriting"]
- The great and almost only comfort about being a woman is that one can always pretend to be more stupid than one is, and no one is surprised.
- Of what use is independence to a woman, if she is - all alone?
- If the parasite woman on the couch, the plaything and amusement of men, be the permanent and final manifestation of female human life on the planet, then that couch is also the death-bed of human evolution.
- I shrug my shoulders in despair at women who moan at the lack of opportunities and then take two weeks off as a result of falling out with their boyfriends.
- Democracy is woman's greatest invention. Indeed, it even reflects her character: purposeless, irrational, subject to public opinion and passing fashions, rambling, confused, underhanded, scheming, in love with its own purity.
- To be a woman is something so strange, so confusing and so complicated that only a woman could put up with it and, what is worse, feel happy about it.
- Woman: a biped with two hands, two feet, two breasts, two eyes and two faces.
- A woman has three reasons for everything she does: the reason she says she has, the reason she thinks she has, and the reason she really has.
- Every woman is a committee.
- A cat has nine lives and a woman has nine cat's lives.
- I will not say that women have no character, rather, they have a new one every day.
- I've never met a man of good character who has had anything to do with a woman.
- A man of straw is worth a woman of gold.
- As with their beauty, so with their spirit; it seems that they allow themselves to be perceived only to be imagined instead. Characters are like colors. There are primary colors, ones that change, an infinitude of shades as you pass from one to another. Women have none other than mixed colors, intermediate or variable, whether upbringing alters their natural shade more than ours or the delicateness of their constitution makes their soul a mirror that accepts everything, reproduces it vividly, but retains nothing.
- Between a woman's "yes" and "no" there is no room for the point of a needle.
- Even a fickle woman is loyal to one man - until she prefers another.
- Her husband's funeral
Is often where a widow looks for the next man.- When widows exclaim loudly against second marriages, I would always lay a wager that the man, if not the wedding day, is absolutely fixed on.
- There are few virtuous women who do not tire of their role.
- Virtue in women is often merely love of their reputation and their peace of mind.
- Are there still virgins? One is tempted to answer no. There are only girls who have not yet crossed the line, because they want to preserve their market value . . . Call them virgins if you wish, these travellers in transit.
- She is chaste whom nobody has asked.
- In the absence of men all women are chaste.
- "Remember, men, we're fighting for this woman's honour; which is probably more than she ever did."
- The sad lesson of life is that you treat a girl with respect, and the next guy comes along and he's banging the hell out of her.
- A woman without a man is like a garden without a fence.
- Woman's virtue is man's greatest invention.
- Lady: one who never shows her underwear unintentionally.
- Women! There isn't anything so bad that they don't soon start to enjoy it. Even if they lived in a barrel of shit they'd start making a home out of it, with everything nice and cozy.
- I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out and sees her adversary, but slinks out of the race, where the immortal garland is to be run for, not without dust and heat. Assuredly we bring not innocence into the world, we bring impurity much rather: that which purifies us is trial, and trial is by what is contrary. That virtue therefore which is but a youngling in the contemplation of evil, and knows not the utmost that vice promises to her followers, and rejects it, is but a blank virtue, not pure; her whiteness is illusory. - [John Milton]
- Women think it is unfair to judge them lacking in virtues they are not even interested in.
- Indiscretion: the guilt of woman.
- A woman sometimes feels pity for the sorrows that she causes without remorse.
- Woman's dearest delight is to wound man's self-conceit, though man's dearest delight is to gratify hers. There is at least one creature lower than man.
- There are some meannesses which are too mean even for man - woman, lovely woman alone, can venture to commit them.
- No matter how much a woman loved a man, it would still give her a glow to see him commit suicide for her.
- A woman rarely discards one lover until she is sure of another.
- Love is the emotion that a woman feels always for a poodle dog and sometimes for a man.
- Women have no sympathy . . . And my experience of women is almost as large as Europe. And it is so intimate too. Women crave for being loved, not for loving. They scream at you for sympathy all day long, they are incapable of giving any in return for they cannot remember your affairs long enough to do so. - [Florence Nightingdale]
- Love of flattery, in most men, proceeds from the mean opinion they have of themselves; in women from the contrary.
- Women never love; rather they pity a man, mother him, delight in making him love them. Their tenderness is deepened by their remorse for being unable to love him.
- Women for the most part do not love us. They do not choose a man because they love him, but because it pleases them to be loved by him.
- Where neither love nor hatred is in the game a woman is a mediocre player.
- If all men told the truth the tears of women would create another flood.
- It is sometimes argued that women have a hard enough time in this world, without telling them the truth.
- Talk to me tenderly, tell me lies;
I am a woman and time flies.- A man who won't lie to a woman has very little consideration for her feelings.
- The formation of a young lady's mind and character usually consists in telling her lies.
- All sensible men are of the same opinion about women and no sensible man ever says what his opinion is.
- What is conscience to a wife? . . . To marry is to domesticate the Recording Angel.
- With a man, a lie is a last resort; with women, it's First Aid.
- Women are not half as sensitive about their sins as about their follies.
- Women always speak the truth, but not the whole truth.
- Women think truth to be an irrelevant triviality whose only role in life is as a stumbling block for men.
- If it is true that weakness gives rise to timidity, timidity to finesse, finesse to falseness, one must conclude that truthfulness is a virtue to be well admired in women.
- Whatever men may think about the study of man, women do really believe the noblest study of womankind to be women.
- Womanhood is the great fact in her life; wifehood and motherhood are but incidental relations.
- It always puzzles me to hear of professional women - are there any amateurs?
- I told her that women were so foolish they thought giving birth to children was a form of creativity. But she thought it was an act of genius.
- I have found one good man in a thousand, But not one good woman among them. - [Ecclesiastes 7:28]
- Better the badness of men than the goodness of women. - [Ecclesiasticus 42:14]
- All wickedness is but little to the wickedness of a woman. - [Apocrypha, Ecclesiasticus]
- Woman is a sick sheass, a hideous tapeworm, the advance post of hell. - [John Damascene, 7th Century monk & Saint]
- For a woman to study the scriptures indicates confusion in the realm. - [The Mahabarata, Hindu Scripture]
- A child also cannot be made a witness in a court of law, nor a woman . . . nor a cheat. . . . These persons might give false evidence. A child would speak falsely from ignorance, a woman from want of veracity, an imposter from habitual depravity. - [Hindu Scripture]
- The sacred books should be burned rather than made available to women. - [Talmud, Sotah 3:4, Jewish Scripture]
- Infatuation, aversion, fear, disgust and various kinds of deceit are ineradicable from the minds of women; for women, therefore, there is no nirvana. ... A woman may be pure in faith and even preoccupied with the study of the sutras or the practice of a terrific asceticism: yet in her case there will still be no falling away of karmic matter. - [Mahavira, Tatparya-vriti (Jain Scripture)]
- The god of death, the wind, the underworld, the ever-burning entrance to hell, the knife-edge, poison, serpent, and fire - women are all of these in one. - [The Ramayana]
- It is nature's law that rivers wind, trees grow wood, and, given the opportunity, women work iniquity. - [Buddha, Sutta-Pitaka]
Ananda: How are we to conduct ourselves, Lord, with regard to womankind?
Buddha: Don't see them Ananda.
Ananda: But if we should see them, what are we to do?
Buddha: Abstain from speech, Ananda.
Ananda: But if they should speak to us, Lord, what are we to do?
Buddha: Keep wide awake, Ananda.- Just, Ananda, as houses in which there are many women and but few men are easily violated by robber burglars; just so, Ananda, under whatever doctrine and discipline women are allowed to live the religious life, that religion will not last long. And just, Ananda, as when the disease called mildew falls upon a field of rice in fine condition, that field of rice does not continue long; just so, Ananda, under whatsoever doctrine and discipline women are allowed to live the religious life, that religion will not last long. - [Buddha, Vinaya-Pitaka]
- Countless are woman's defects.
My elephantine mind has fallen
Into the poisonous swamp of guile.
So I must renounce the world.
- [Naropa, Tibetan mystic poet]- Some say that learning seems not to be the business of women. I say that . . . control of the mind is of the utmost importance to women, and it would be a great mistake to say that it is not their business. The outward manner and temper of women is rooted in the negative (yin) power, and so temperamentally women are apt to be sensitive, petty, narrow, and jaundiced. Confinement results in limited vision. Consequently, among women compassion and honesty are rare indeed. That is why Buddhism says that women are particularly sinful and have the greatest difficulty in attaining Buddhahood. Thus women are in special need of mental discipline. - [Toju, Zen Master]
- A woman is a valley, a man is a peak;
a man enters the woman, the woman simply allows;
a man is an aggression, a woman is a receptivity;
a man tries to do, a woman simply waits for things to happen ...
Look at a woman. She is balanced. Her needs are small:
somebody to love, somebody to be loved by, food, shelter, a little
warmth around, a home - finished.
And she is not worried about anything:
no woman has created any science;
no woman has founded any religion.- A man with a bad heart has been sometimes saved by a strong head; but a corrupt woman is lost forever.
- The one thing that man never gives to a woman is spiritual help.
- The souls of women are so small, that some believe they've none at all.
- Is it not better to fall into the hands of a murderer than into the dreams of a lustful woman?
- God created woman. And boredom did indeed cease from that moment - but many other things ceased as well. Woman was God's second mistake.
- Woman has never created anything as beautiful as she has destroyed.
- It has often been claimed that God is a woman, but to my knowledge no-one has ever claimed that the Devil is a woman and really meant it. So I will.
- Women believe that the concept of evil is evil.
- The overwhelming pain of loneliness; a mother smiles at her baby - watch out for the Devil!
- Wouldst thou define or know what a woman is?
She is glittering mud, a stinking rose, sweet poison, ever leaning toward that which is forbidden her.
Woman is adamant, pitch, buckthorn, a rough thistle, a clinging burr, a stinging wasp, a burning nettle.
Lo, woman is the head of sin, a weapon of the devil, expulsion from paradise, mother of guilt, corruption of the ancient law. - [Salimbene, 13th C.]- What else is a woman but a foe to friendship, a cosmic punishment, a necessary evil, a natural temptation, a desirable calamity, a domestic peril, a delectable detriment, a deadly fascination, a painted ill! Therefore, if it be a sin to divorce her when she ought to be kept, it is indeed a necessary torture; for either we commit adultery by divorcing her, or we must endure daily strife.
- But wait, you say that it is not her body, but her "finer qualities" that enchant you. I see. By this you mean no doubt, her cunning, conniving character, her relentless treachery, her ceaselessly wagging, nagging tongue, her inane vanity, her meows and purrs and hissings, her whorishness and prudery (for Woman spends her entire life vacillating between these two extremes). Or perhaps you have in mind her spitefulness, her obstinacy, her mindless illogic, her caviling, cawing stupidity. Yes, doubtless these are the "finer qualities" you find to revere in the object of your affections. . .
- The man who enters his wife's dressing-room is either a philosopher or a fool.
- Woman is at once apple and serpent.
- Woman is a temple built upon a sewer.
- Woman: a promise that cannot be kept.
- Women are sweetly smiling angels with pensive looks, innocent faces, and cash-boxes for hearts.
- A woman has the form of an angel, the heart of a serpent, and the mind of an ass.
- The ingenuity of a guileless woman will undermine nine mountains.
- Her dove-like eyes turn'd to coals of fire,
Her beautiful nose to a terrible snout,
Her hands to paws, with nasty great claws,
And her bosom went in and her tail came out.- O the unsounded sea of women's bloods,
That when 'tis calmest, is most dangerous! . . .
Not Cerberus ever saw the damned nooks
Hid with the veils of woman's virtuous looks.- The so-called "lovely woman" is beautified with the face of a noble lion, yet is blemished with the belly of a reeking kid and is beweaponed with the virulent tail of a viper.
- A woman is like a glowworm which is bright in the hedge and black in the hand.
- Women are glow wormes bright, that soil our soules, and dampe our reasons light.
- Women are like Gods. They have a face for their worshippers, and one for their rivals.
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