Grocott & Ward, comps. Grocott’s Familiar Quotations, 6th ed. 189-?.
Women
Most women have no characters at all.
Pope.—Moral Essays, Epi. II. Line 2.
What! fair, and young, and faithful too?
A miracle, if this be true!
Anonymous.—Said to be from a play of Waller’s.
Hard is the fortune that your sex attends;
Women, like princes, find few real friends.
Lyttleton.—Advice to a Lady, 1731, Line 9.
Two women placed together makes cold weather.
Shakespeare.—Henry VIII. Act I. Scene 4. (The Chamberlain to Lord Sands.)
No reason ask, our reason is our will.
Marston.—The Malcontent, Act I. Scene 6.
And what they think in their hearts they may effect—they will break their hearts but they will effect.
Shakespeare.—Merry Wives of Windsor, Act II. Scene 2. (Ford.)
I’ve seen your stormy seas and stormy women,
And pity lovers rather more than seamen.
Byron.—Sardanapalus.
He knew the stormy souls of woman kind.
Dryden.—The Æneid, Book V. Line 7.
We cannot fight for love as men may do;
We should be woo’d, and were not made to woo.
Shakespeare.—Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act II. Scene 2. (Helena to Demetrius.)
Follow a shadow, it still flies you;
Seem to fly it, it will pursue:
So court a mistress, she denies you;
Let her alone, she will court you.
Say are not women truly, then,
Styled but the shadows of us men?
Ben Jonson.—A Song. The Forest.
One moral’s plain—without more fuss;
Man’s social happiness all rests on us:
Through all the drama—whether damn’d or not—
Love gilds the scene, and women guide the plot.
Sheridan.—Epilogue to the Rivals, Line 3.
The caprices of woman kind are not limited by any climate or nation, and they are much more uniform than can be imagined.
Swift.—The Voyage to Laputa, Chapter II, Vol. I. of Roscoe’s edition of his life.
It requires more charms and address in women to revive one fainting flame than to kindle new ones.
Swift.—To the Rev. Mr. Winder. 2nd Vol. of Roscoe’s edition of his life, Page 346.
Women’s prayers are things perfectly by rote, as they put on one stocking after another.
Swift.—To the Rev. Dr. Tisdall; Correspondence. His Life by Roscoe, Vol. II. Page 439.
The best thing to keep them from playing the devil, is to encourage them in playing the fool.
Bulwer Lytton.—Devereux, Book I. Chapter XVII.
Ah! happy age when ladies learn’d to bake,
And when kings’ daughters knew to knead a cake.
Rebecca was esteem’d of comely hue,
Yet not so nice her comeliness to keep,
But that she water for the camels drew;
Rachael was fair, yet fed her father’s sheep,
But now for to supply Rebecca’s place
Or do as Rachael did is counted base:
Our dainty dames would take it in disgrace.
Thos. Fuller.—David’s Heinous Sin, Part III. Stanza 11, 12.