"If men could see us as we really are, they would be a little amazed; but the cleverest, the acutest men are often under an illusion about women. They do not read them in a true light; they misapprehend them, both for good and evil. Their good woman is a queer thing, half doll, half angel; their bad woman almost always a fiend."
~
Shirley
by
Charlotte Bronte
A man desires to win a virgin heart, and is happy to know,—or at least to believe,—that he has won it. With a woman every former rival is an added victim to the wheels of the triumphant chariot in which she is sitting.
~
Phineas Finn
by
Anthony Trollope
Any woman who is sure of her own wits is a match at any time for a man who is not sure of his own temper.
~
The Woman in White
by
Wilkie Collins
It was all very well for an Englishman like Mr. Fogg to make the tour of the world with a carpet-bag; a lady could not be expected to travel comfortably under such conditions.
~
Around the World in 80 Days
by
Jules Verne
"God for men—religions for women," he muttered sometimes.
~
Nostromo
by
Joseph Conrad
To be alone with the girl to whom he is not engaged is a man's delight; to be alone with the man to whom she is engaged is the woman's.
~
The Eustace Diamonds
by
Anthony Trollope
"Men always want to be a woman's first love. That is their clumsy vanity. We women have a more subtle instinct about things. What we like is to be a man's last romance."
~
A Woman of No Importance
by
Oscar Wilde
The task of reclaiming a bad man is extremely seductive to good women.
~
The Ordeal of Richard Feverel
by
George Meredith
There she plucked from my lapel the invisible strand of lint (the universal act of woman to proclaim ownership).
~
Strictly Business
by
O. Henry
He was gradually discovering the delight there is in frank kindness and companionship between a man and a woman who have no passion to hide or confess.
~
Middlemarch
by
George Eliot