"Far away there in the sunshine are my highest aspirations. I may not reach them, but I can look up and see their beauty, believe in them, and try to follow where they lead." —Louisa May Alcott
"Cautious, careful people always casting about to preserve their reputation or social standards never can bring about reform. Those who are really in earnest are willing to be anything or nothing in the world's estimation, and publicly and privately, in season and out, avow their sympathies with despised ideas and their advocates, and bear the consequences." —Susan B. Anthony
"In passing, also, I would like to say that the first time Adam had a chance he laid the blame on a woman." —Nancy Astor
(British Politician)
"For what is done or learned by one class of women becomes, by virtue of their common womanhood, the property of all women." —Elizabeth Blackwell
(The first woman in the U.S. to become a physician)
"We stand now where two roads diverge. But unlike the roads in Robert Frost's familiar poem, they are not equally fair. The road we have long been traveling is deceptively easy, a smooth superhighway on which we progress with great speed, but at its end lies disaster. The other fork of the road—the one "less traveled by"—offers our last, our only chance to reach a destination that assures the preservation of the earth." — Rachel Carson
"We've chosen the path to equality, don't let them turn us around." —Geraldine Ferraro
(The first woman to be nominated as Vice President of the United States)
"You can do one of two things; just shut up, which is something I don't find easy, or learn an awful lot very fast, which is what I tried to do." —Jane Fonda
"If you have knowledge, let others light their candles in it." — Margaret Fuller
"My address is like my shoes. It travels with me. I abide where there is a fight against wrong." —Mother Jones
"Don't compromise yourself. You are all you've got." —Janis Joplin
"Many persons have a wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness. It is not attained through self-gratification but through fidelity to a worthy purpose."—Helen Keller
"I can honestly say that I was never affected by the question of the success of an undertaking. If I felt it was the right thing to do, I was for it regardless of the possible outcome." —Golda Meir
"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." —Margaret Mead
"If we are to achieve a richer culture, rich in contrasting values, we must recognize the whole gamut of human potentialities, and so weave a less arbitrary social fabric, one in which each diverse gift will find a fitting place." —Margaret Mead
"Something which we think is impossible now is not impossible in another decade."
— Constance Baker Motley
(First Black Woman in the U.S. to become a Federal Judge)
"People think at the end of the day that a man is the only answer [to fulfillment]. Actually a job is better for me." —Princess Diana
"Remember no one can make you feel inferior without your consent." —Eleanor Roosevelt
"In my heart, I think a woman has two choices: either she's a feminist or a masochist." —Gloria Steinem
"The first problem for all of us, men and women, is not to learn, but to unlearn."
—Gloria Steinem
"I am also very proud to be a liberal. Why is that so terrible these days? The liberals were liberators—they fought slavery, fought for women to have the right to vote, fought against Hitler, Stalin, fought to end segregation, fought to end apartheid. Liberals put an end to child labor and they gave us the five day work week! What's to be ashamed of?"—Barbra Streisand
"We still live in a world in which a significant fraction of people, including women, believe that a woman belongs and wants to belong exclusively in the home."
—Rosalyn Sussman
(Nobel Prize-winning medical physicist)
"You can tell how high a society is by how much of its garbage is recycled." —Dhyani Ywahoo (Native American)
"It's so clear that you have to cherish everyone. I think that's what I get from these older black women, that every soul is to be cherished, that every flower is to bloom." —Alice Walker
"I've learned from experience that the greater part of our happiness or misery depends on our dispositions and not on our circumstances." —Martha Washington
"As a woman I have no country. As a woman my country is the whole world."
—Virginia Woolf
“A woman is like a tea bag; you never know how strong it is until it's in hot water.” - Eleanor Roosevelt ("You Learn by Living")
“For most of history, Anonymous was a woman.” - Virginia Woolf
“I, with a deeper instinct, choose a man who compels my strength, who makes enormous demands on me, who does not doubt my courage or my toughness, who does not believe me naïve or innocent, who has the courage to treat me like a woman.” - Anais Nin
“You educate a man; you educate a man. You educate a woman; you educate a generation.” - Brigham Young
“Lock up your libraries if you like, but there is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind.” - Virginia Woolf ("A Room of One's Own")
“No woman really wants a man to carry her off; she only wants him to want to do it.” - Elizabeth Peters
“A girl should be two things: classy and fabulous.” - Coco Chanel
“After all, Ginger Rogers did everything that Fred Astaire did. She just did it backwards and in high heels.” - Ann Richards
“In politics, If you want anything said, ask a man. If you want anything done, ask a woman.” - Margaret Thatcher
“How wrong is it for a woman to expect the man to build the world she wants, rather than to create it herself?” - Anais Nin
“There is more to sex appeal than just measurements. I don't need a bedroom to prove my womanliness. I can convey just as much sex appeal, picking apples off a tree or standing in the rain.” - Audrey Hepburn
“I'm no model lady. A model's just an imitation of the real thing.” - Mae West
“Ladies who play with fire must remember that smoke gets in their eyes.” - Mae West
“The trouble with some women is that they get all excited about nothing - and then marry him.” - Cher
“Feminism is the radical notion that women are human beings.” - Cheris Kramarae
“Dress shabbily and they remember the dress; dress impeccably and they remember the woman.” - Coco Chanel
“The thing women have yet to learn is nobody gives you power. You just take it. ” - Roseanne Barr
“She wore her sexuality with an older woman's ease, and not like an awkward purse, never knowing how to hold it, where to hang it, or when to just put it down.” - Zadie Smith
“I hate to hear you talk about all women as if they were fine ladies instead of rational creatures. None of us want to be in calm waters all our lives.” - Jane Austen (”Persuasion”)
“Women and cats will do as they please, and men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea.” - Robert A. Heinlein
