Great Throughts Treasury

This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.

Woman

"There is nothing enduring in life for a woman except what she builds in a man's heart." - Judith Anderson, born Frances Margaret Anderson-Anderson, aka Dame Judith Anderson

"There are no little events with the heart. It magnifies everything; it places in the same scales the fall of an empire of fourteen years and the dropping of a woman’s glove, and almost always the glove weighs more than the empire." - Honoré de Balzac

"Music should strike fire from the heart of man, and bring tears from the eyes of woman." -

"Candor is the seal of a noble mind, the ornament and pride of man, the sweetest charm of woman, the scorn of a rascal and the rarest virtue of sociability." - Martin Bentzel von Sternau und Hohenau

"A woman’s head is always influenced by her heart; but a man’s heart is always influenced by his head." - Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of Blessington, Lady Blessington, born Margaret Power

"No man or woman has achieved an effective personality who is not self-disciplined. Such discipline must not be an end in itself, but must be directed to the development of resolute Christian character." - Abel Bonnard

"What makes woman lovely? Virtue, Faith, and gentleness in suffering, an endurance through scorn or trial; then has it the stamp celestial, and is admitted to sisterhood with angels." -

"No man or woman of the humblest sort can really be strong, gentle, pure and good, without the world being the better for it, without somebody being helped an comforted by the very existence of that goodness." - Phillips Brooks

"There is a vein of inconsistency in every woman’s heart, within whose portals love hath entered." - Madame Deluzy, Luzy Dorothee

"A woman who throws herself at a man’s head will soon find her place at his feet." -

"Friendship is held to be the severest test of character. It is easy, we think, to be loyal to family and clan, whose blood is in our own veins. Love between man and woman is founded on the mating instinct and is not free from desire and self-seeking. But to have a friend, and to be true under any and all trials, is the mark of a man!" - Charles Alexander Eastman, first named Ohiyesa

"There are robberies that leave man and woman forever beggared of peace and joy, yet kept secret by the sufferer." - George Eliot, pen name of Mary Ann or Marian Evans

"The best advice I can give to any young man or young woman upon graduation from school can be summed up in exactly eight words, and they are - be honest with yourself and tell the truth." - James A. Farley

"Simplicity is a captivating grace in woman, as rare as it is attractive." - J. de Finod

"The only thing that brings a mother undiluted satisfaction is her relation to a son; it is quite the most complete relationship between human beings, and the one that is the most free from ambivalence. The mother can transfer to her son all the ambition which she has had to surpress in herself, and she can hope to get from him the satisfaction of all that has remained to her of her masculinity complex. Even a marriage is not firmly assured until the woman has succeeded in making her husband into her child and in acting the part of a mother towards him." - Sigmund Freud, born Sigismund Schlomo Freud

"Prayer is not an old woman's idle amusement. Properly understood and applied, it is the most potent instrument of action." -

"I know it sounds strange, but it is true. In the difficult deaths dying patients grasp onto your hand - as if by sheer grip they could hold on to life. I try to tell them whatever I can, to comfort them and say it will be all right. But in the easy deaths it’s the other way around - the dying man or woman will reach out and take your hand. They are trying to comfort you." - William Grossman

"Patience is the guardian of faith, the preserver of peace, the cherisher of love, the teacher of humility; patience, governs the flesh, strengthens the spirit, sweetens the temper, stifles anger, extinguishes envy, subdues the hand, tramples upon temptation, endures persecutions, consummates martyrdom; patience produces unity in the church, loyalty in the state, harmony in families and societies; she comforts the poor and moderates the rich; she makes us humble in prosperity, cheerful in adversity, unmoved by calumny and reproach; she teaches us to forgive those who have injured us, and to be the first in asking forgiveness of those whom we have injured; she delights the faithful, and invites the unbelieving; she adorns the woman, and approves the man; is loved in a child, praised in a young man, admired in an old man; she is beautiful in either sex and every age." - George Horne

"The misery of a child is interesting to a mother, the misery of a young man is interesting to a young woman, the misery of an old man is interesting to nobody." - Victor Hugo

"After all, it is the divinity within that makes the divinity without; and I have been more fascinated by a woman of talent and intelligence, though deficient in personal charms, than I have been by the most regular beauty." - Washington Irving

"Love is the purification of the heart from self; it strengthens and ennobles the character; gives higher motive and nobler aim to every action of life, and makes both man and woman strong, noble, and courageous. The power to love truly and devotedly is the nobles gift with which a human being can be endowed; but it is a sacred fire that must not be burned to idols." - Maria Jane Jewsbury

"Passivity is the dragon that every woman has to murder in her conquest for independence." - Jill Johnston

"When a beautiful woman yields to temptation, let her consult her pride, though she forgets her virtue." -

"Today, every inhabitant of this planet must contemplate the day when it may no longer be habitable. Every man, woman and child lives under a nuclear sword of Damocles, hanging by the slenderest of threads, capable of being cut at any moment by accident, miscalculation or madness. The weapons of war must be abolished before they abolish us." - John F. Kennedy, fully John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy

"As soon as a woman is no longer ours, we are no longer theirs." - Michel de Montaigne, fully Lord Michel Eyquem de Montaigne

"We are not put here on earth to play around. There is work to be done. There are responsibilities to be met. Humanity needs the abilities of every man and woman." - Alden C. Palmer

"Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home - so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world. Yet they are the world of the individual person; the neighborhood he lives in; the school or college he attends; the factory, the farm or office where he works. such are the places where every man, woman, and child seeks equal justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity without discrimination. Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere. Without concerned citizen action to uphold them close to home, we shall look in vain for progress in the larger world." -

"It is... possible for a civilized man and woman to be happy in marriage, although if this is to be the case a number of conditions must be fulfilled. There must be a feeling of complete equality on both sides; there must be no interference with mutual freedom; there must be the most complete physical and mental intimacy; and there must be a certain similarity in regard to standards of values." -

"Love makes of the wisest man a fool, and of the most foolish woman, a sage." - Moritz Saphir, fully Moritz Gottlieb Saphir, born Moses Saphir

"I would argue that a man or woman who cannot speak or write clearly cannot think and reason cogently either." -

"Woman’s virtue is man’s greatest invention." - Cornelia Otis Skinner

"Every man, like narcissus, becomes enamored of the reflection of himself, only choosing a substance instead of a shadow. This love for any particular woman is self-love at second hand, vanity reflected, compound egotism." - Horace Smith

"The eyes are the windows of a woman’s heart; you may enter that way!" - Joseph Marie Eugène Sue

"No free communities ever existed without morals, and... morals are the work of woman." -

"No clear-thinking or clear-seeing man or woman can be an apostle of despair. He alone fails who gives up and lies down." - Ralph Waldo Trine

"A woman of honor should not suspect another of things she would not do herself." - Marguerite De Valois, or Margaret of Valois, Marguerite de France

"Man cannot degrade woman without himself falling into degradation; he cannot elevate her without at the same time elevating himself." - Alexander Walker

"The soul is of itself, all verges to it, all has reference to what ensures, all that a person does, says, thinks, is of consequence, not a move can a man or woman make, that affects him or her in a day, month, any part of the direct lifetime, or the hour of death, but the same affects him or her onward afterward through the indirect lifetime. The indirect is just as much as the direct, the spirit receives from the body just as much as it gives to the body, if not more." - Walt Whitman, fully Walter "Walt" Whitman

"The spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me, he complains of my gab and my loitering. I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable, I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world." - Walt Whitman, fully Walter "Walt" Whitman

"What do you suppose I would intimate to you in a hundred ways but that man or woman is as good as God? And that there is no God any more divine than yourself." - Walt Whitman, fully Walter "Walt" Whitman

"There are high spots in all of our lives and most of them have come about through encouragement from someone else. I don't care how great, how famous or successful a man or woman may be, each hungers for applause." - George Matthew Adams

"Every man, woman and child holds the possibility of physical perfection: it rests with each of us to attain it by personal understanding and effort." - Matthias Alexander, fully Frederick Matthias Alexander

"Woman is the salvation or the destruction of the family. She carries its destiny in the folds of her mantle." -

"Modern invention has banished the spinning-wheel, and the same law of progress makes the woman of today a different woman from her grandmother." -

"The future of society is in the hands of the mothers. If the world was lost through woman, she alone can save it." -

"Silence is one of the great arts of conversation, as allowed by Cicero himself, who says, "there is not only an art, but an eloquence in it." A well bred woman may easily and effectually promote the most useful and elegant conversation without speaking a word. The modes of speech are scarcely more variable than the modes of silence." -

"The sweetest of all sounds is that of the voice of the woman we love." - Jean de La Bruyère

"Woman grow attached to men through the favors they grant them; but men, through the same favors, are cured of their love." - Jean de La Bruyère

"Nothing in life is as good as the marriage of true minds between a man and woman. As good? It is life itself." - Pearl S. Buck, fully Pearl Sydenstricker Buck, also known by her Chinese name Sai Zhenzhu

"Man's love is of man's life a thing apart, 'tis woman's whole existence." -