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

"Beauty in a good woman is like fire at a distance or a sharp sword; the one does not burn, or the other wound, those who come not too close." - Miguel de Cervantes, fully Miguel de Cervantes Saaversa

"The heaviest of burdens crushes us, we sink beneath it, it pins us to the ground. But in love poetry of every age, the woman longs to be weighed down by the man's body.The heaviest of burdens is therefore simultaneously an image of life's most intense fulfillment. The heavier the burden, the closer our lives come to the earth, the more real and truthful they become. Conversely, the absolute absence of burden causes man to be lighter than air, to soar into heights, take leave of the earth and his earthly being, and become only half real, his movements as free as they are insignificant. What then shall we choose? Weight or lightness?" - Milan Kundera

"The brain appears to possess a special area which we might call poetic memory and which records everything that charms or touches us, that makes our lives beautiful... Love begins with a metaphor. Which is to say, love begins at the point when a woman enters her first word into our poetic memory." - Milan Kundera

"Woman is the future of man. That means that the world which was once formed in man's image will now be transformed to the image of woman. The more technical and mechanical, cold and metallic it becomes, the more it will need the kind of warmth that only the woman can give it. If we want to save the world, we must adapt to the woman, let ourselves be led by the woman, let ourselves be penetrated by the Ewigweiblich, the eternally feminine!" - Milan Kundera

"It seemed to me an error in reasoning for a man to isolate a woman he loves from all the circumstances in which he met her and in which she lives, to try, with dogged inner concentration, to purify her of everything that is not her self, which is to say also of the story that they lived through together and that gives their ove its shape. After all, what I love in a woman is not what she is in and for herself, but the side of herself she turns toward me, what she is for me. I love her as a character in our common love story." - Milan Kundera

"The fate of a woman solves her always "yes", but the fate of man - his "no." " - Milorad Pavić

"A beautiful woman delights the eye; a wise woman, the understanding; a pure one, the soul." - Minna Thomas Antrim

"You have peace," the old woman said, "when you make it with yourself." - Mitch Albom, fully Mitchell David "Mitch" Albom

"To call woman the weaker sex is a libel; it is man's injustice to woman. If by strength is meant brute strength, then, indeed, is woman less brute than man. If by strength is meant moral power, then woman is immeasurably man's superior. Has she not greater intuition, is she not more self-sacrificing, has she not greater powers of endurance, has she not greater courage? Without her, man could not be. If nonviolence is the law of our being, the future is with woman. Who can make a more effective appeal to the heart than woman?" - Mahatma Gandhi, fully Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, aka Bapu

"Morality which depends upon the helplessness of a man or woman has not much to recommend it. Morality is rooted in the purity of our hearts." - Mahatma Gandhi, fully Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, aka Bapu

"It is the duty of every cultured man or woman to read sympathetically the scriptures of the world. If we are to respect others' religions as we would have them respect our own, a friendly study of the world's religions is a sacred duty." - Mahatma Gandhi, fully Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, aka Bapu

"A man's as old as he's feeling, A woman as old as she looks. " - Mortimer Collins, fully Edward James Mortimer Collins

"A man cannot in honour be exculpated, who, though the word Love never pass his lips, by such methods defrauds a woman of her heart!" - Hannah Cowley

"A woman is like a tea bag, you can not tell how strong she is until you put her in hot water." - Nancy Reagan, born Anne Frances Robbins

"A woman laughing is a woman conquered." - Napoleon Bonaparte, Napoleon I

"Romantic love is a passionate spiritual-emotional-sexual attachment between a man and a woman that reflects a high regard for the value of each other's person." - Nathaniel Branden

"A man or woman with many children has many homes. - Lakota Sioux" -

"Foolish, ignorant and vicious persons go to books for their thoughts and judgments, and for all their elevated and noble sentiments, just as a rich woman goes with her money to a draper." - Nicolas Chamfort,fully Sébastien-Roch Nicolas De Chamfort, also spelled Nicholas

"If all feeling for grace and beauty were not extinguished in the mass of mankind at the actual moment, such a method of locomotion as cycling could never have found acceptance; no man or woman with the slightest aesthetic sense could assume the ludicrous position necessary for it." - Ouida, pseudonym of Maria Louise Ramé, preferred to be called Marie Louise de la Ramée NULL

"Art is not the application of a canon of beauty but what the instinct and the brain can conceive beyond any canon. When we love a woman we don't start measuring her limbs. " - Pablo Picasso, fully Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso

"Man and woman should look upon one another as reflections of the Divine." - Paramahansa Yogananda, born Mukunda Lal Ghosh

"The relationship that exists between friends is the grandest of human loves. Friendly love is pure, because it is without compulsion. One freely chooses to love his friends; he is not bound by instinct. The love that manifests in friendship can exist between man and woman, woman and woman, man and man. But in the love of friendship, there is no sexual attraction. One must practice celibacy and absolutely forget sex if one wants to know divine love through friendship; then friendship nurtures the cultivation of divine love." - Paramahansa Yogananda, born Mukunda Lal Ghosh

"The mother of the year should be a sterilized woman with two adopted children." -

"It is the woman who chooses the man who will choose her. " - Paul Géraldy, pen name of Paul Lefevre

"Beauty is as relative as light and dark. Thus, there exists no beautiful woman, none at all, because you are never certain that a still far more beautiful woman will not appear and completely shame the supposed beauty of the first." - Paul Klee

"The mother of the year should be a sterilized woman with two adopted children." - Paul Ehrlich, fully Paul Ralph Ehrlich

"At that moment it seemed to him that time stood still and the soul of the world surged within him. When he looked into her dark eyes and saw that her lips were poised between a laugh and silence, he learned the most important part of the language that all the world spoke. The language that everyone on earth was capable of understanding in their heart. It was love. Something older than humanity, more ancient than the desert. Something that exerted the same force whenever two pairs of eyes met, as had theirs here at the well. She smiled, and that was certainly an omen. The omen he had been awaiting without even knowing he was for all his life. The omen he sought to find in his sheep and in his books. In the crystals and in the silence of the desert… It was the pure language of the world. It required no explanation, just as the universe needs none as it travels through endless time. What the boy felt at that moment was that he was in the presence of the only woman in his life. And that, with no need for words she recognized the same thing. He was more certain of it, than of anything in the world. He had been told by his parents and grandparents that he must fall in love and really know a person before becoming committed. But maybe people who felt that way never learned the universal language. Because when you know that language, it’s easy to understand that someone in the world awaits you. Whether it’s in the middle of the desert or in some great city. And when two such people encounter each other, and their eyes meet, the past and the future become unimportant. There is only that moment, and the incredible certainty that everything under the sun has been written by one hand only. It is the hand that evokes love and makes a twin soul for every person in the world. Without such love, one's dreams would have no meaning. " - Paulo Coelho

"Every moment in life is an act of faith… Every moment of searching is a moment of encounter… Esther, however, was the only woman who understood one very simple thing: in order to be able to find her, I first had to find myself… Even if it is only for a matter of moments, because those moments bring with them a Love so intense that it justifies the rest of our days… Even if loving meant leaving, or solitude, or sorrow, love was worth every penny of its price. " - Paulo Coelho

"Human beings can withstand a week without water, two weeks without food, many years of homelessness, but not loneliness. It is the worst of all tortures, the worst of all sufferings. Like her, these men, and the many others who sought her company, were all tormented by that same destructive feeling, the sense that no one else on the planet cared for them… Hunger, thirst is truly desire to be around a person. And from there, everything changes, men and women together into a play, but before that happens-the appeal has brought them closer together-it cannot be explained. The attraction was not the desire to touch; it is in a state of clarity and purity. When desire is still in a pure state, the man and woman feel love life, and they live every moment in a respectful, alert, always ready to honor and celebrate the blessings that are coming. When people feel like they will not rush, they will not rush to into action without thinking. They know that the inevitable will happen, what is real will always find a way to express itself. When that time comes, they will not hesitate, they will not miss the opportunity, they will not lose a single magic moment, because they appreciate the significance of each moment… I have inside me the winds, the deserts, the oceans, the stars, and everything created in the universe. We were all made by the same hand, and we have the same soul." - Paulo Coelho

"There is a story of a woman running away from tigers. She runs and runs and the tigers are getting closer and closer. When she comes to the edge of a cliff, she sees some vines there, so she climbs down and holds on to the vines. Looking down, she sees that there are tigers below her as well. She then notices that a mouse is gnawing away at the vine to which she is clinging. She also sees a beautiful little bunch of strawberries close to her, growing out of a clump of grass. She looks up and she looks down. She looks at the mouse. Then she just takes a strawberry, puts it in her mouth, and enjoys it thoroughly. Tigers above, tigers below. This is actually the predicament that we are always in, in terms of our birth and death. Each moment is just what it is. It might be the only moment of our life; it might be the only strawberry we’ll ever eat. We could get depressed about it, or we could finally appreciate it and delight in the preciousness of every single moment of our life. " - Pema Chödrön, born Deirdre Blomfield-Brown

"There was once a lady who was arrogant and proud. Determined to attain enlightenment, she asked all the authorities how to go about it. She was told, ‘Well, if you climb to the top of this very high mountain, you'll find a cave there. Sitting inside that cave is a wise old woman. She will tell you.’ Having endured great hardships, the lady finally found this cave. Sure enough, sitting there was a gentle spiritual-looking old woman in white clothing, who smiled beatifically. Overcome with awe and respect, the lady prostrated at the feet of this woman and said, I want to attain enlightenment. Show me how. This wise woman looked at her and asked sweetly, Are you sure you want to attain enlightenment? And the woman said, Of course I'm sure. Whereupon the smiling woman turned into a demon, stood up brandishing a great big stick, and started chasing her, saying, Now! Now! Now! For the rest of her life, that lady could never get away from the demon who was always saying, Now! Now--that's the key. Mindfulness trains us to be awake and alive, fully curious, about now. " - Pema Chödrön, born Deirdre Blomfield-Brown

"For a man the whole world is his love. For a woman love is her whole world." - Peter Altenberg

"The non-profit institution neither supplies goods or services not controls. Its product is neither a pair of shoes nor an effective regulation. Its product is a changed human being. The non-profit institutions are human-change agents. Their product is a cured patient, a child that learns, a young man or woman grown into a self-respecting adult; a changed human life altogether. " - Peter F. Drucker, fully Peter Ferdinand Drucker

"A fair woman shall not only command without authority, but persuade without speaking." -

"What I am defending is the real rights of women. A woman should have the right to be in the home as a wife and mother… When will American men learn how to stand up to the nagging by the intolerant, uncivil feminists whose sport is to humiliate men?" - Phyllis Schlafly, fully Phyllis McAlpin Stewart Schlafly

"I'm the only woman who can walk in Central Park at night - and reduce the crime rate." - Phyllis Diller, born Phyllis Ada Driver

"Love enters a man through his eyes, woman through her ears." - Polish Proverbs

"Love between man and woman cannot be built without sacrifices and self-denial. " - Pope John Paul II, born Karol Józef Wojtyła, aka Saint John Paul the Great NULL

"We are asked to love and honor the life of every man and woman and to work with perseverance We are facing an enormous and dramatic clash between good and evil, death and life, the culture. We must emphasize and give prominence to the primacy of human beings in the production process, the primary of human beings over things. " - Pope John Paul II, born Karol Józef Wojtyła, aka Saint John Paul the Great NULL

"A woman is so made that she cannot give the tender passionate devotion of her whole nature save to the great conquering soul, stronger in its powers, though not in its aspirations, than her own, that can lead her forever & forever up and on. It is for her soul exactly as it is for her body. The strong divine soul of the man embracing hers with passionate love—so alone the precious germs within her soul can be quickened into life. And the time will come when man will understand that a woman’s soul is as dear and needful to his and as different from his as her body to his body. That was what happened to me when I had read for a few days, nay, hours, in your books. It was the divine soul embracing mine. I never before dreamed what love meant: not what life meant. Never was alive before—no words but those of “new birth” can hint the meaning of what then happened to me." - Anne Gilchrist, née Burrows

"No culture on earth outside of mid-century suburban America has ever deployed one woman per child without simultaneously assigning her such major productive activities as weaving, farming, gathering, temple maintenance, and tent-building. The reason is that full-time, one-on-one child-raising is not good for women or children. " - Barbara Ehrenreich, born Barbara Alexander

"Upscale young men seem to go for the kind of woman who plays with a full deck of credit cards, who won't cry when she's knocked to the ground while trying to board the six o clock Eastern shuttle, and whose schedule doesn't allow for a sexual encounter lasting more than twelve minutes. " - Barbara Ehrenreich, born Barbara Alexander

"Implicitly adopting the male life as the norm, they have tried to fashion women out of a masculine cloth. It all goes back to Adam and Eve a story which shows . . . that if you make a woman out of man, you are bound to get into trouble." - Carol Gilligan

"It all goes back, of course, to Adam and Eve - a story which shows among other things, that if you make a woman out of a man, you are bound to get into trouble." - Carol Gilligan

"Recollection, Repetition, and Working Through. Take, for example, the feeling of being abandoned-not that the adult, who feels lonely and therefore takes tablets or drugs, goes to the movies, visits friends, or telephones unnecessarily, in order to bridge the gap somehow. No, I mean the original feeling in the small infant, who had none of these chances of distraction and whose communication, verbal or proverbial, did not reach the mother. This was not the case because his mother was bad, but because she herself was narcissistically deprived, dependent on a specific echo from the child that was so essential to her, or she herself was a child in search of an object that could be available to her. However paradoxical this may seem, a child is at the mother's disposal A child cannot run away from her as her own mother once did. A child can be so brought up that it becomes what she want it to be. A child can be made to show respect, she can impose her own feelings on him, see herself mirrored in his love and admiration, and feel strong in his presence, but when he becomes too much she can abandon that child to a stranger. The mother can feel herself the center of attention, for her child's eyes follow her everywhere. When a woman had to suppress and repress all these needs in relation to her own mother, they rise from the depth of her unconscious and seek gratification through her own child, however well-educated and well-intentioned she may be, and however much she is aware of what a child needs. The child feels this clearly and very soon forgoes the expression of his own distress. Later, when there feeling of being deserted begin to emerge in analysis of the adult, they are accompanied by such intensity of pain and despair that it is quite clear that these people could not have survived so much pain. That would only have been possible in an empathic, attentive environment, and this they lacked. The same holds true for emotions connected with the Oedipal drama and the entire drive development of the child. All this had to be warded off. But to say that it was absent would be a denial of the empirical evidence we have gained in analysis." - Alice Miller, née Rostovski

"This decision, which is one of the most fundamental, difficult, and soul-searching decisions a woman and a family can make, is also one in which the government should have no role. I believe we can all recognize that abortion in many ways represents a sad, even tragic choice to many women. Often, it's a failure of our system of education, and preventive services. It's often a result of family dynamics. This decision is a profound and complicated one; a difficult one, often the most difficult that a woman will ever make. The fact is that the best way to reduce the number of abortions is to reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies in the first place." - Hillary Rodham Clinton

"We need to understand that there is no formula for how women should lead their lives. That is why we must respect the choices that each woman makes for herself and her family. Every woman deserves the chance to realize her God-given potential. " - Hillary Rodham Clinton

"When I told the people of Northern Ireland that I was an atheist, a woman in the audience stood up and said, "Yes, but is it the God of the Catholics or the God of the Protestants in whom you don't believe?"" - Quentin Crisp, born Denis Charles Pratt

"A woman either loves or hates; she knows no medium." - Publius Syrus

"A woman possessing nothing but outward advantages is like a flower without fragrance, a tree without fruit." - Mathurin Régnier