Germaine de Staël Quotes

A man must know how to act in the face of opinion; a woman to submit to it.

I didn't want to be a boy, ever, but I was outraged that his height and intelligence were graces for him and gaucheries for me.

Men make angry music and it's called rock-and-roll; women include anger in their vocabulary and suddenly they're angry and militant.

A woman can never be too rich or too thin, but until very, very recently, she could be too powerful, for which - if she wasn't smart enough to camouflage herself - she generally paid the price.

Black men don't like to be called 'boys,' but women accept being called 'girls.'

While gossip among women is universally ridiculed as low and trivial, gossip among men, especially if it is about women, is called theory, or idea, or fact.

Men think a woman should not have an opinion.

I don’t have any respect to men who send women out to do their fighting for them.

The oppression of women is based on custom and tradition—not religion.

The press, many-tongued, surpassed itself in reproaches upon these women who had so far departed from their sphere as to speak in public.

… male religious leaders have had -- and still have -- an option to interpret holy teachings either to exalt or subjugate women. They have, for their own selfish ends, overwhelmingly chosen the latter.

Men never get free from morality, only women.

If it's unseemly and possibly dangerous for a man to be angry, it's totally unacceptable for a woman to be angry.

It's absolutely delightful to get dressed up for a lovely evening, but when it goes from being a fun thing to being a chore, and a chore that men don't have to do, then we need to think about it differently.

There's still a narrower band of acceptable behavior for women than men.

Women have to compensate more in the personality department in order to get the things that men get. And they don't have as much leeway for being divas or jerks.

Women all live a double standard.

It's acceptable for men to act the fool. When women try, they're considered aggressive and opinionated.

A man is called a good fellow for doing things which, if done by a woman, would land her in a lunatic asylum.

The reason there are so few female politicians is that it is too much trouble to put makeup on two faces.

I was a girl in a land where rifles are fired in celebration of a son, while daughters are hidden away behind a curtain, their role in life simply to prepare food and give birth to children.

People always blame the girl; she should have said no. A monosyllable, but conventional wisdom has always been that boys can't manage it.

What works for a man, still does not work for a woman - both in terms of how they see themselves and how we see them.

And then also I think it's harder for women because comedy is so opposite of being ladylike.

Bras are a ludicrous invention; but if you make bralessness a rule, you're just subjecting yourself to yet another repression.