I don’t know why women want any of the things men have when one the things that women have is men.
—Coco Chanel (1883–1971) French Fashion Designer, Businessperson, Entrepreneur
The man of the house can destroy the pleasure of the household, but he cannot make it. That rests with the woman, and it is her greatest privilege.
—Arthur Helps (1813–75) English Dramatist, Essayist
Women serve but to keep a man from better company.
—William Wycherley (1640–1715) English Dramatist
Good men do not always have grace and favor, lest they should be puffed up, and grow insolent and proud.
—John Chrysostom (349–407) Greek Christian Saint, Religious Leader
The minute a man ceases to grow, no matter what his years, that minute he begins to be old.
—William James (1842–1910) American Philosopher, Psychologist, Physician
I know many married men, I even know a few happily married men, but I don’t know one who wouldn’t fall down the first open coal hole running after the first pretty girl who gave him a wink.
—George Jean Nathan (1882–1958) American Drama Critic, Editor
A lady is smarter than a gentleman, maybe, she can sew a fine seam, she can have a baby, she can use her intuition instead of her brain, but she can’t fold a paper in a crowded train.
—Phyllis McGinley (1905–78) American Children’s Books Writer, Poet, Writer of Children’s Books
When a man is wrong and won’t admit it, he always gets angry.
—Thomas Chandler Haliburton (1796–1865) Canadian Author, Humorist, Businessperson, Judge
Women still remember the first kiss after men have forgotten the last.
—Remy de Gourmont (1858–1915) French Poet, Novelist, Critic
Men greet each other with a sock on the arm, women with a hug, and the hug wears better in the long run.
—Edward Hoagland (b.1932) American Essayist, Novelist
Men wake up aroused in the morning. We can’t help it. We just wake up and we want you. And the women are thinking, “How can he want me the way I look in the morning?” It’s because we can’t see you. We have no blood anywhere near our optic nerve.
—Andy Rooney (1919–2011) American Writer, Humorist, TV Personality
Women are never disarmed by compliments. Men always are.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Dramatist, Short Story Writer, Journalist, Writer
Nature makes woman to be won and men to win.
—George William Curtis (1824–92) American Essayist, Public Speaker, Editor, Author
Women are told from their infancy, and taught by the example of their mothers, that a little knowledge of human weakness, justly termed cunning, softness of temper, outward obedience and a scrupulous attention to a puerile kind of propriety, will obtain for them the protection of man.
—Mary Wollstonecraft (1759–97) British Children’s Books Writer, Writer, Philosopher, Civil Rights Advocate
God gave us all a penis and a brain, but only enough blood to run one at a time.
—Robin Williams (b.1951) American Actor, Comedian
There is always a period when a man with a beard shaves it off. This period does not last. He returns headlong to his beard.
—Jean Cocteau (1889–1963) French Poet, Novelist, Dramatist, Playwright, Artist
I wonder why men get serious at all. They have this delicate, long thing hanging outside their bodies which goes up and down by its own will. If I were a man I would always be laughing at myself.
—Yoko Ono (b.1933) Japanese Artist, Musician, Author, Peace Activist
I must have women — there is nothing unbends the mind like them.
—John Gay (1685–1732) English Poet, Dramatist
They dream in courtship, but in wedlock wake.
—Alexander Pope (1688–1744) English Poet, Translator
As long as men are free to ask what they must, free to say what they think, free to think what they will, freedom can never be lost and science can never regress.
—J. Robert Oppenheimer (1904–67) American Theoretical Physicist
The world would be happier if men had the same capacity to be silent that they have to speak.
—Baruch Spinoza (1632–77) Dutch Philosopher
Sometimes I think that the biggest difference between men and women is that more men need to seek out some terrible lurking thing in existence and hurl themselves upon it. Women know where it lives but they can let it alone.
—Russell Hoban (1925–2011) American Children’s Books Writer, Novelist, Writer
Coming to terms with the rhythms of women’s lives means coming to terms with life itself, accepting the imperatives of the body rather than the imperatives of an artificial, man-made, perhaps transcendentally beautiful civilization. Emphasis on the male work-rhythm is an emphasis on infinite possibilities; emphasis on the female rhythms is an emphasis on a defined pattern, on limitation.
—Margaret Mead (1901–78) American Anthropologist, Author
The fact is, you have fallen lately, Cecily, into a bad habit of thinking for yourself. You should give it up. It is not quite womanly… men don’t like it.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Dramatist, Short Story Writer, Journalist, Writer
Don’t accept rides from strange men – and remember that all men are as strange as hell.
—Robin Morgan (b.1941) American Activist, Writer, Poet, Editor
Perhaps women have always been in closer contact with reality than men: it would seem to be the just recompense for being deprived of idealism.
—Germaine Greer (b.1939) Australia Academic, Journalist, Scholar, Writer
A women knows how to keep quiet when she is in the right, whereas a man, when he is in the right, will keep on talking.
—Malcolm de Chazal (1902–81) Mauritian Writer, Painter, Visionary
The tragedy of machismo is that a man is never quite man enough.
—Germaine Greer (b.1939) Australia Academic, Journalist, Scholar, Writer
I really think that American gentlemen are the best after all, because kissing your hand may make you feel very good but a diamond and a sapphire bracelet lasts forever.
—Anita Loos (1888–1981) American Actor, Novelist, Screenwriter
Sometimes I have a notion that what might improve the situation is to have women take over the occupations of government and trade and to give men their freedom. Let them do what they are best at. While we scrawl interoffice memos and direct national or extranational affairs, men could spend all their time inventing wheels, peering at stars, composing poems, carving statues, exploring continents — discovering, reforming, or crying out in a sacramental wilderness. Efficiency would probably increase, and no one would have to worry so much about the Gaza Strip or an election.
—Phyllis McGinley (1905–78) American Children’s Books Writer, Poet, Writer of Children’s Books
No nice men are good at getting taxis.
—Katharine Whitehorn (b.1928) English Journalist, Writer, Columnist
There are certainly are not so many men of large fortune in the world as there are of pretty woman to deserve them.
—Jane Austen (1775–1817) English Novelist
The cruelest thing a man can do to a woman is to portray her as perfection.
—D. H. Lawrence (1885–1930) English Novelist, Playwright, Poet, Essayist, Literary Critic
Nature has not placed us in an inferior rank to men, no more than the females of other animals, where we see no distinction of capacity, though I am persuaded if there was a commonwealth of rational horses… it would be an established maxim amongst them that a mare could not be taught to pace.
—Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1689–1762) English Aristocrat, Poet, Novelist, Writer
Men are happy to be laughed at for their humor, but not for their folly.
—Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) Irish Satirist, Essayist, Pamphleteer, Poet
A man that is ashamed of passions that are natural and reasonable is generally proud of those that are shameful and silly.
—Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1689–1762) English Aristocrat, Poet, Novelist, Writer
The most threatened group in human societies as in animal societies is the unmated male: the unmated male is more likely to wind up in prison or in an asylum or dead than his mated counterpart. He is less likely to be promoted at work and he is considered a poor credit risk.
—Germaine Greer (b.1939) Australia Academic, Journalist, Scholar, Writer
It is funny the two things most men are proudest of is the thing that any man can do and doing does in the same way, that is being drunk and being the father of their son.
—Gertrude Stein (1874–1946) American Writer, Poet
Women are one of the Almighty’s enigmas to prove to men that He knows more than they do.
—Ellen Glasgow (1873–1945) American Novelist
A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle.
—Gloria Steinem (b.1934) American Feminist, Journalist, Social Activist, Political Activist
All societies on the verge of death are masculine. A society can survive with only one man; no society will survive a shortage of women.
—Germaine Greer (b.1939) Australia Academic, Journalist, Scholar, Writer
Sure men were born to lie, and women to believe them!
—John Gay (1685–1732) English Poet, Dramatist
Man dreams of fame while woman wakes to love.
—Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–92) British Poet
I do not know who first invented the myth of sexual equality. But it is a myth willfully fostered and nourished by certain semi-scientists and other fiction writers. And it has done more, I suspect, to unsettle marital happiness than any other false doctrine of this myth-ridden age.
—Phyllis McGinley (1905–78) American Children’s Books Writer, Poet, Writer of Children’s Books
A man reserves his true and deepest love not for the species of woman in whose company he finds himself electrified and enkindled, but for that one in whose company he may feel tenderly drowsy.
—George Jean Nathan (1882–1958) American Drama Critic, Editor
Man made one grave mistake: in answer to vaguely reformist and humanitarian agitation he admitted women to politics and the professions. The conservatives who saw this as the undermining of our civilization and the end of the state and marriage were right after all; it is time for the demolition to begin.
—Germaine Greer (b.1939) Australia Academic, Journalist, Scholar, Writer
Alas! it is not the child but the boy that generally survives in the man.
—Arthur Helps (1813–75) English Dramatist, Essayist