Woman In Progress Quotes & Sayings

The history of progress is written in the blood of men and women who have dared to espouse an unpopular cause, as, for instance, the black man's right to his body, or woman's right to her soul. — Emma Goldman

I am one of those who believe that spiritual progress is a rule of human life, but the approach to perfection is slow and painful. If a woman elevates herself in one respect and is retarded in another, it is because the rough trail that leads to the mountain peak is not free of ambushes of thieves and lairs of wolves. — Khalil Gibran

A woman's life revolves in curves of emotions. It is upon lines of intellect that a man's life progresses. — Oscar Wilde

As a young man I started searching for my own identity by looking into family, friends and inside

Myself. My mother always taught us to live free even when confined, meaning "never let anyone break you down physically or mentally." Since my living environment was so heavily impacted with violence and illegal activity I found myself adapting to social norms that later in my adult life would negatively affect me. For example, certain physical reactions that were acceptable, as a child would give you a reputation on the street as tough guy, don't mess with him. The same mentality later in life, as a man would label you as a predator of some sort and a woman abuser. It was hard to understand the true value of a man and all his worth and everything he is capable of achieving, when you're surrounded by pimps, hustlers and con men that all may make more money than the men with trade jobs and have more of an appealing lifestyle for the short- term progress. — Rubin Scott

For me the beginning of all true progress in the woman question lies in women's right to vote ... The strong the emphasis on the difference between the sexes, the clearer the need for the specific representation of women. — Hedwig Dohm

He could be anywhere by now, so that is where I look for him. Anywhere...
There are times when I don't recognize this woman who plays with such self-possession. She is something that I have faked. She is William Tyne's daughter, I supposed; his idea of her. I put her forward when I am performing so that he will approach me. I strive to make her taller than she is, more graceful, less unsure. I don't think other people have to try so hard in their lives. Or do they? Are we all living like this? So close to this mesh of nerves?
So I played for my father another concerto, though he was never one for sitting still in a chair. He would make an exception for me, though, his firstborn. He would see the progress I have made. — Claire Kilroy

Without fear of contradiction, I can safely say that every step in progress that woman has made she has been assailed by ecclesiastics, that her most vigilant unwearied opponents have always been the clergy ... — Elizabeth Cady Stanton

When people see the terrible scenes of violence on television, when we mourn the death of each and every American man and woman in uniform or a civilian that's killed, that it's hard to see the progress that's being made and it's hard to believe that this is all going to come out for the better. — Condoleezza Rice

You'd like some soothin', wouldn't you, Mr. Fairfax?" she asked in a sympathetic voice. A raw chuckle left his throat as he thought of Emma forcing this poor little minx into a calico dress and an old lady's snood. "I sure would, Callie," he answered honestly, "but I'm afraid there's only one woman I want." A mischievous grin curved Callie's mouth. "Miss Emma?" "The same," Steven admitted with a sigh, "but don't you tell her. I want this to be our little secret." Callie sat down in the chair Emma always occupied when she read to him. He found himself missing that redheaded hellcat with a fierce keenness, as though they'd been parted a month instead of a few hours. "She got real upset, Miss Emma did," Callie confided in a happy whisper, "when I came over here and told her Miss Chloe'd sent me to look after you." Steven laughed. "Good," he replied, staring out the window at the sun. It seemed to be immersing itself in the far side of the lake. "I'm making progress." Callie — Linda Lael Miller

Do not stand in the way of the next step in human progress. No one living who reads the signs of the times but realizes that woman suffrage must come. We are working for the ballot as a matter of justice and as a step for human betterment. — Carrie Chapman Catt

It is because of the Biblical curse on man's search for knowledge, which has so paralyzed his mind during the past ages, and its detrimental effect upon progress, that makes the Bible the most wicked, the most detestable, the most pernicious, and the most obnoxious book ever published. It has been a curse to the human race.
It is the duty of every brave and honest man and woman to do everything in his and her power to destroy the influence of this utterly stupid and vicious book, with its infantile concept of life and its nonsense concerning the universe. It is their duty to do everything within their power to stop its demoralizing and paralyzing influence upon the life of man.
We will never achieve intellectual liberty until the wickedness of this book has been discarded with the belief in the flatness of the earth. — Joseph Lewis

Because sometimes I find myself talking about God so much He becomes more of an identity marker than an identity changer in my life. Having God as an identity marker reduces Him to nothing more than a label, a lingo, & a lifestyle
I'm a Christian so I talk like one & act like one. But having God as an identity changer is much, much more. It means I am no longer the person I was before, someone who comes unglued at minor things. I am making imperfect progress. Shifting, breaking away, & being chiseled. I am a woman whose identity has been changed by coming face to face with the One who has the power to completely transform me. — Lysa TerKeurst

Sensing an ally, Priss took two steps toward her, but Trace pulled her up short by grabbing her arm.
"No, you don't," he told her, and no matter how Priss yanked and pulled, she couldn't free herself.
"Settle down, will you?" Trace said near her ear. "You're not helping things."
The woman's expression pinched even more.
Dare started toward her in a ground-eating stride. "Back inside, Molly," he said, sounding more cajoling than commanding. "I'll explain in private."
Like hell! Priss didn't want to lose whatever opportunities this might be, so she shouted, "Molly, help me. Trace drugged me to bring me here, and Dare manhandled me when I tried to escape." And before Trace could muzzle her, if indeed that was his intent, she added, "Some other guy stole my cat!"
The woman's mouth dropped open, then firmed shut again. With one raised hand, she halted Dare's progress. Dare dropped his head and groaned. — Lori Foster

You had to be an over-the-top, demanding, dramatic figure in order to progress as a woman in Europe over the last few hundred years. Now people say, "You're being such a prima donna," meaning you're being hard to deal with or crazy. It's a bit sexist. — Rufus Wainwright

This 'fecundity of will,' this thirst for action, when accompanied by poverty of feeling and intellect incapable of creation, will produce nothing but a Napoleon I or a Bismarck, wiseacres who try to force the world to progress backwards. While on the other hand, mental fertility destitute of well developed sensibility will bring forth such barren fruits as literary and scientific pedants who only hinder the advance of knowledge. Finally, sensibility unguided by large intelligence will produce such persons as the woman ready to sacrifice everything for some brute of a man, upon whom she pours forth all her love.
If life is to be fruitful, it must be so at once in intelligence, in feeling and in will. This fertility in every direction is life; the only thing worthy the name. — Pyotr Kropotkin

I love that I am but one of millions of single girls hitting the road by themselves these days. A hateful little ex-boyfriend once said that a houseful of cats used to be the sign of a terminally single woman, but not it's a house full of souvenirs acquired on foreign adventures. He said it derogatorily: Look at all of this tragic overcompensating in the form of tribal masks and rain sticks. But I say that plane tickets replacing cats might be the best evidence of women's progress as a gender. I'm damn proud of us. Also, since I have both a cat and a lot of foreign souvenirs, I broke up with that dude and went on a really great trip. — Kristin Newman

It wasn't what lay at the end of her road that frightened Ammu as much as the nature of the road itself. No milestones marked its progress. No trees grew along it. No dappled shadows shaded it. No mists rolled over it. No birds circled it. No twists, no turns or hairpin bends obscured even momentarily, her clear view of the end. This filled Ammu with an awful dread, because she was not the kind of woman who wanted her future told. She dreaded it too much. So if she were granted one small wish perhaps it would have been Not to Know, Not to know what each day hed in store for her. Not to know where she might be, next month, next year. Ten years on. Not to know which way her road might turn and what lay beyond the bend. — Arundhati Roy

Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home - so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world. Yet they are the world of the individual person; the neighborhood he lives in; the school or college he attends; the factory, farm, or office where he works. Such are the places where every man, woman, and child seeks equal justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity without discrimination. Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere. Without concerted citizen action to uphold them close to home, we shall look in vain for progress in the larger world. — Eleanor Roosevelt

I have witnessed the strength of our people driven from their own land. The tenacious march south is like a silent protest against death. In this tidal wave of men and woman a hatred mingles with hope. And this furious force of will that has infected me too will carry me to the very end of my own lonely progress. — Shan Sa

There is a strong conservative instinct in the average man or woman, born of the hereditary fear of life, that prompts them to cling to old standards, or, if too intelligent to look inhospitably upon progress, to move very slowly. Both types are the brakes and wheelhorses necessary to a stable civilization, but history, even current history in the newspapers, would be dull reading if there were no adventurous spirits willing to do battle for new ideas. — Gertrude Atherton

We've come a long way from the time when the crowning achievement in a woman's life was her youthful marriage. And many would agree that this represents progress for women. But when did the search for someone to marry become self-absorbed and pathetic? This absence of social sympathy for women's ambitions to marry is all the more striking because the social world has cared so deeply about virtually every other aspect of these privileged young women's inner and outer lives. ( ... ) The achievement of a good marriage is the one area of life where the most privileged, accomplished, and high achieving young women in society face a loss of support and sympathy for their ambitions and where the social expectations are for disappointment and failure, not success. — Barbara Dafoe Whitehead

When you see a white woman and a white man eating dinner together, watching a movie, or drinking at a bar you probably think they are a couple. Not so fast! White people often engage in something called a "platonic friendship." These arrangements feature a white male who is in love with a white female who needs companionship or access to someone with a car. The relationship is symbiotic for a long time as the white male believes he is making "progress" in his efforts to sleep with the white woman. The white female is in turn rewarded with companionship, someone to help her move, and an excellent "backup" plan in case she is unable to date the male of her choice. — Anonymous

Be grateful for challenges because ... Had there been no difficulties and no thorns in the way, then [each woman and] man would have been in his primitive state and no progress made in civilisation and mental culture. — Anandi Gopal Joshi

Literacy is a bridge from misery to hope. It is a tool for daily life in modern society. It is a bulwark against poverty, and a building block of development, an essential complement to investments in roads, dams, clinics and factories. Literacy is a platform for democratization, and a vehicle for the promotion of cultural and national identity. Especially for girls and women, it is an agent of family health and nutrition. For everyone, everywhere, literacy is, along with education in general, a basic human right ... Literacy is, finally, the road to human progress and the means through which every man, woman and child can realize his or her full potential. — Kofi Annan

her proficiency in the Classics would somehow stand her in better stead when opening and closing filing-cabinet drawers and conducting endless searches among a sea of buff-coloured folders. It wasn't quite the 'interesting job' she had envisaged but it kept her attention and over the next ten years she rose slowly through the ranks, in the bridled way that women did. ('One day a woman will be Prime Minister,' Pamela said. 'Maybe even in our lifetime.') Now Ursula had her own junior clericals to chase down the buff folders for her. She supposed that was progress. Since '36 she'd been working in the Air Raid Precautions Department. 'You've not heard rumours then?' Pamela said. 'I'm a lowly squaw, I hear nothing but rumours.' 'Maurice can't say what he does,' Pamela grumbled. 'Couldn't — Kate Atkinson

An animated conversation was in progress and the woman behind the counter started airing her views about a murder case that had created some stir in Algiers. A young commercial employee had killed an Algerian on a beach. — Albert Camus

Everything in the world reminded him of her. The beauty of the loved woman exists in the beauties of Nature. The swelling outlines of the hills, the curves of a coast, the free sinuosities of a river are less suave than the harmonious lines of her body, and when she moves, gliding lightly, the grace of her progress suggests the power of occult forces which rule the fascinating aspects of the visible world. — Joseph Conrad

But Mehrunnisa did not know then, would never know, by giving her blessings to this marriage she had set into progress a chain of events that would eventually erase her name from history's pages. Or that Arjumand would become the only Mughal woman posterity would easily recognize. Docile, seemingly tractable and troublesome Arjumand would eclipse even Mehrunnisa, cast her in a shadow...because of the monument Khurram would build in Arjumand's memory - the Taj Mahal. — Indu Sundaresan

The more ardently I see humanity as a glorious abstract that must conform to my ideal of how the world should be, the harder it is for me to love the person on the other side of the picket line who is holding up progress. I can love the downtrodden in the abstract, but as I shivered under the bridge that night with Jorge, I realized that it's harder to love the illegal immigrant with the bottle-slashed face and the body unwashed for weeks, the workers gathering to eat day-old bread and chicken and rice out of foam containers, the crowd of thousands clamoring for bread and fish and healing, the unclean woman hoping to touch the hem of the Savior's robe. — Alisa Harris

I found the happiest woman in America is between 50 and 55, is happily married, has made significant progress in her career, and lives in a community where she can easily exercise outside. But the most important single thing was she had her last child before she was 35. — Gail Sheehy

It is often asserted that as woman has always been man's slave
subject
inferior
dependent, under all forms of government and religion, slavery must be her normal condition. This might have some weight had not the vast majority of men also been enslaved for centuries to kings and popes, and orders of nobility, who, in the progress of civilization, have reached complete equality. — Susan B. Anthony

The story of Janie's progress through three marriages confronts the reader with the significant idea that the choice one makes between partners, between one man and another (or one woman and another) stretches beyond romance. It is, in the end, the choice between values, possibilities, futures, hopes, arguments (shared concepts that fit the world as you experience it), languages (shared words that fit the world as you believe it to be) and lives. — Zadie Smith

The reaction of the people below to this fantastic sight and sound was one of wild excitement. Details could be seen vividly from aloft. An elderly man and woman fell to their knees and prayed. People in the villages stood still and gaped upward. Most of them still had their Sunday finery on. "You could see people going to church...man, wife, and child walking along the country roads." Bombardier Herbert Light, through his binoculars, saw an open-air festival in progress, with the women dressed in colorful skirts and blouses. One of them threw her apron over her head in panic.
As they roared over the wheat fields, the first unfriendly acts occurred: farmers threw stones and pitchforks at them. One farmer leading two horses was startled by the advancing planes and leaped into a nearby stream. A girl swimming in another river was reported by ten separate crews. — Leon Wolff

I think it is every woman's duty to make herself as attractive as her time and means permit. After all, there you are, in your person- a living symbol of the progress of art, science and imagination. To be as attractive as we can be is almost a civic duty; there are so many sad and ugly things in the world that I think women should say to themselves humbly, not with vanity, 'I will try to be as pretty as I can, so that when people look at me, they will feel refreshed. I will make an effort to be easy on the eye.' — Ilka Chase

Women must find their own answer. That's the important thing. I'm no longer interested in books about women written by men. Even if I could believe in their objectivity, I just can't find their opinions relevant. Now I will only believe what a woman has to say about women, because even if it's not entirely true, it's her struggle and she's on the way to the answer.
Many of you seek masculine approval. Even though you have inside you your way of talking and writing, you have mountains of it inside you, and even though it is enough to begin expressing yourselves so long as it is with your vocabulary, your abstractions, and your own conceptualization, I think you are still afraid of the master: men. Of their judgment. As long as you have this fear, you will not progress. I think the future belongs to women. Men have been completely dethroned. Their rhetoric is stale, used up. We must move on the rhetoric of women, one that is anchored in the organism, in the body. — Marguerite Duras

Emily supposed the modern world was fortunate in the progress of science. But she could not help but feel at this moment the impropriety of male invasiveness. She knew he was working to save this poor woman, but in her mind, too, was a sense of Wrede's science as adding to the abuse committed by his fellow soldiers. He said not a word. It was as if the girl were no more than the surgical challenge she offered. — E.L. Doctorow