» On women and men

… twelve interesting quotations

If you wish women to love you, be original; I know a man who used to wear felt boots summer and winter, and women fell in love with him.

Anton Chekhov . 1860-1904 . Russian physician, writer and playwright . Notebook

Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned
Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned.

William Congreve . 1670-1729 . English playwright and poet . The mourning bride

A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle.

Irina Dunn . 1948- . Australian writer, social activist and filmmaker [often misattributed to Gloria Steinem]

A man in love is incomplete until he has married. Then he’s finished.

Zsa Zsa Gabor . 1917- . Hungarian-American actress . quoted, Newsweek

Women have very little idea of how much men hate them.

Germaine Greer . 1939- . Australian writer and academic . The female eunuch

I know nothing of man’s rights, or woman’s rights, human rights are all that I recognise.

Sarah Grimké . 1792-1873 . American abolitionist, attorney and judge . Letters on the equality of the sexes and the condition of woman

Every woman is the gift of a world to me.

Heinrich Heine . 1797-1856 . German romantic poet . Ideas: The book Le Grand

A man who wants to find out who he really is should try watching the woman he loves as she dances the tango with a maestro.

Clive James . 1939- . expatriate Australian writer and poet . Cultural amnesia

Gentlemen prefer blondes.

Anita Loos . 1888-1981 American screenwriter, playwright and author . title of book

It is not male hatred of women but male fear of women that is the great universal.

Camille Paglia . 1947- . American author, scholar and critic . No law in the arena

In his younger days a man dreams of possessing the heart of the woman whom he loves; later, the feeling that he possesses the heart of a woman may be enough to make him fall in love with her.

Marcel Proust . 1871-1922 . French novelist, essayist and critic . Swann’s way [translated by CK Scott Moncrieff and Terence Kilmartin]

I do not wish [women] to have power over men; but over themselves.

Mary Wollstonecraft . 1759-1797 . English social philosopher and advocate of women’s rights . quoted, A history of women in America (Hymowitz & Weissman)

On women and men