Respectable Women Quotes & Sayings

for in contrast to the restrictions imposed on respectable Greek women who only went out of the house as a last resort and even then fully covered, their Egyptian sisters were not only allowed out, but attended market and 'are employed in trade while the men stay at home and do the weaving'. Further unnatural practices meant that Egyptian 'women pass water standing up, men sitting down', — Joann Fletcher

Leda, Lula and Rochelle had not been women like Lucy, or his Aunt Joan; they had not taken every reasonable precaution against violence or chance; they had not tethered themselves to life with mortgages and voluntary work, safe husbands and clean-faced dependants: their deaths, therefore, were not classed as "tragic," in the same way as those of staid and respectable housewives. — Robert Galbraith

I try to make my comments like a woman's skirt: long enough to be respectable and short enough to be interesting. — Adam Clayton Powell III

No man is inherently respectable, but all women are by nature. — Lin Yutang

If any-one accosts young girls who are dressed in the clothes of slaves, his offence will be seen as minor, and even more so if the women are dressed as prostitutes, and not as [respectable] mothers of families. Therefore, if a woman is not dressed as a matron and some-one calls out to her or entices away her attendant, he will not be liable to the action for injury — Alexandra Croom

He'd been respectable and respectful, always treating women — Melody Anne

Who says great literatue has to be written by men? Who says great literature has to be about scary, creepy stuff like adulterers being punished and black slaves breaking loose and giant whales eating people? Why can't literature just be stories about women? Refined, respectable women have just as much to say as ignorant black slaves or bloodthirsty Indians or mad white whaling captains. Why do we have to pretend those people's lives matter more than our own? — Anna Quindlen

I don't believe in respecting women on the grounds that they are women. What's important is not DISRESPECTING them. In my eyes, everyone starts off as a person, what the individual does defines them, regardless of color, race, creed, sexual preference or gender. People need to stop demanding respect. Do something respectable. Yes, the majority of men do play games with women and treat them like machines that if you oil the right way you'll get what you want out of them, and that sucks, but at the same time, as many women act and behave like those very machines. The most admirable thing, I find in my lifetime at least, is just being yourself. It's also the hardest thing to do. — Max Davine

The responsibility for men's behavior, indeed for civilization itself rests entirely with women here, and in how they dress and behave. Men's animalistic impulses are presumed to be overwhelming and uncontrollable. And as men are brutal, brainless savages, women must hide their bodies to avoid being assaulted. In most societies, a respectable woman, to varying degrees, is expected to cover up. If she doesn't she is inviting assault. — Jenny Nordberg

If he could not restore her to the status of a respectable woman, then Sohrab would make her into something else entirely, something hitherto unknown in their entire extended family, an educated woman, a professional woman. — Jasmin Darznik

Women have married because it was necessary, in order to survive economically, in order to have children who would not suffer economic deprivation or social ostracism, in order to remain respectable, in order to do what was expected of women because coming out of "abnormal" childhoods they wanted to feel "normal," and because heterosexual romance has been represented as the great female adventure, duty, and fulfillment. We may faithfully or ambivalently have obeyed the institution, but our feelings - and our sensuality - have not been tamed
or contained within it. — Adrienne Rich

Society has never barred women from bread-winning roles, but only from economic roles that are profitable and respectable. — Jeane Kirkpatrick

DON'T LOOK LIKE a midwife," Brother Gregory interrupted, as he blew on a page to make it dry. His face was averted to conceal his distaste. It is one thing to describe, say, the Virgin with angel attendants, but this woman had no discretion at all. "I'm not one anymore," replied Margaret, looking at him coldly. "That is self-evident; it's not an art practiced by women in respectable circumstances," said Brother Gregory, looking around. "It ought to be the most respected profession in the world - midwives witness how God makes the world new," said Margaret; — Judith Merkle Riley

Respectable men and women content with the good and easy living are missing some of the most important things in life. Unless you give yourself to some great cause you haven't even begun to live. — William P. Merrill

War stories, westerns, spy stories are all accepted as respectable because they are read by men. It is only women's light reading which is derided. — Charlotte Lamb

Even the most respectable woman has a complete set of clothes in her wardrobe ready for a possible abduction. — Sacha Guitry

You could guarantee a decent cup of coffee in Betty's, but it went beyond the decent coffee and the respectable girls (and women) who had been parcelled up some time in the 1930s and freshly unwrapped this morning. It was the way that everything was exactly right and fitting. And clean. — Kate Atkinson

First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, 2for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. 3This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, 4who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. 5For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man [1] Christ Jesus, 6who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time. 7For this I was appointed a preacher and an apostle (I am telling the truth, I am not lying), a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth. 8I desire then that in every place the men should pray, lifting holy hands without anger or quarreling; 9likewise also that women should adorn themselves in respectable apparel, with modesty and self-control, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly attire, 10but with what is — Anonymous

People will think you're courting me.'
'Nonsense, everyone knows I don't court respectable women. — Julia Quinn

The first bout of warm spring rain caused normally respectable women to pull off their stockings and run through muddy puddles alongside their children. — Leslye Walton

The fact that (respectable) women began to wear 'attractive' nightwear only after the introduction, in the early eighties of last century, of the practice of birth-control, has an obvious implication. In the days of unlimited birth-rate the feminine nightdress was markedly unappealing: perhaps a calculated discretion. — C. Willett Cunnington

You hate the very source of your life, it's ultimate basis - for there's no denying it, 'sex is fundamental. And you hate it, hate it.' 'Me?' It was a novel accusation. Spandrell was accustomed to hearing himself blamed for his excessive love of women and the sensual pleasures. 'Not only you. All these people.' With a jerk of his head he indicated the other diners. 'And all the respectable ones too. Practically everyone. It's the disease of modern man. I call it Jesus's disease on the analogy of Bright's disease. Or rather Jesus's and Newton's disease; for the scientists are as much responsible as the Christians. So are the big business men, for that matter. It's Jesus's and Newton's and Henry Ford's disease. Between them, the three have pretty well killed us. Ripped the life out of our bodies and stuffed us with hatred.' Rampion — Aldous Huxley

They often say woman cannot keep a secret, but every woman in the world, like every man, has a hundred secrets in her own soul which she hides from even herself. The more respectable she is, the more certain it is the secrets exist. — Austin O'Malley

Two hundred years ago, the mothers of the books we take for granted were lumped together in the same lowly category as factory workers, governesses, and prostitutes. A respectable woman didn't write, she took care of her household: if she were rich, she oversaw a staff of servants and entertained for a living; if she were poor, she carried out endless labors punctuated by births and deaths. Jane Austen had to publish her books anonymously at a time when women were lucky to be taught to read. — Erin Blakemore

Lainie, of course, would never turn gray. No respectable woman from Texas ever would."
~ A Woman of Fortune — Kellie Coates Gilbert

People did not pick up the sexual connotations that often make even the most innocent expression of affection seem sexual to our sensibilities today. Perfectly respectable nineteenth-century women wrote to each other in terms like these: "[T]he expectation once more to see your face again, makes me feel hot and feverish." They carved their initials into trees, set flowers in front of one another's portraits, danced together, kissed, held hands, and endured intense jealousies over rivals or small slights.24 — Stephanie Coontz

Oh that. Men do fall in love with me. They seem to think me a creature with volcanic passions; I'm sure I don't know why. All the volcanic women I know are plain little creatures with sandy hair. I don't consider human volcanoes respectable. And I'm so tired of the subject. Our house is always full of women in love with my husband and men in love with me. We encourage it because it's pleasant to have company. — George Bernard Shaw

A country where women are not free has no chance ever to be something good and respectable! — Mehmet Murat Ildan

A raped girl is bad for the family: it shows that they can't protect their women; that they have little social standing; and that they're not respectable. It's worse for the victim because once a woman, or a girl - or a boy - is known as the target of a rape she becomes so despised, so shamed, so worthless that she turns into public property. No one is raped only once. — Louise Brown

But now respectable elderly women do not need to excuse themselves for buying brandy or even gin, though it is quite likely that some still do and perhaps one may hope that they always will. — Barbara Pym

It appears to me that our sex is only discussed publicly in a derogatory manner. The respectable woman is doomed to anonymity. — Karen Essex

It is always difficult to make the transition to a modern world. I moved from the world of faith to the world of reason - from the world of excision and forced marriage to the world of secual emancipation. Having made that journey, I know that one of those worlds is simply better than the other. Not because of its flashy gadgets, but fundamentally, because of its values.
The message of this book, if it must have a message, is that we in the West would be wrong to prolong the pain of that transition unnecessarily, by elevating cultures full of bigotry and hatred toward women to the stature of respectable alternative ways of life. — Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Harris, as he occasionally explains to George and to myself, has daughters of his own, or, to speak more correctly, a daughter, who as the years progress will no doubt cease practising catherine wheels in the front garden , and will grow up into a beautiful and respectable young lady. This naturally gives Harris an interest in all beautiful girls up to the age of thirty-five or thereabouts; they remind him, so he says, of home. — Jerome K. Jerome

Tall and thin, Mademoiselle Baptistine was a pale and gentle person. She was the incarnation of the word 'respectable,' whereas to be 'venerable,' a woman should lso be a mother. — Victor Hugo

...While many who have debated the image of female sexuality have put "explicit" and "self-objectifying" on one side and "respectable" and "covered-up" on the other, I find this a flawed means of categorization. [...] There is a creative possibility for liberatory explicitness because it may expand the confines of what women are allowed to say and do. We just need to refer to the history of blues music - one full of raunchy, irreverent, and transgressive women artists - for examples. Yet the overwhelming prevalence of the Madonna/whore dichotomy in American culture means that any woman who uses explicit language or images in her creative expression is in danger of being symbolically cast into the role of whore regardless of what liberatory intentions she may have. — Imani Perry