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Nancy Astor (1879-1964)

Nancy Astor, born in Virginia, married an English heir, Waldorf Astor, as her second husband. When her husband was elevated to the House of Lords, Nancy Astor ran for his seat in Parliament, and became, in 1919, the first woman seated in the British Parliament. Nancy Astor supported women's rights and, during World War II, worked to keep up the morale of the British people and American troops stationed in the Plymouth area near her home.
Nancy Astor was known for her sharp wit.

Selected Nancy Astor Quotations

� No one sex can govern alone. I believe that one of the reasons why civilization has failed so lamentably is that it had one-sided government.

� We are not asking for superiority for we have always had that; all we ask is equality.

� Women have got to make the world safe for men since men have made it so darned unsafe for women.

Corazon Aquino (1933 - )
Corazon Aquino was the first woman to run for President in the Philippines and was attending law school when she met her future husband, Benigno Aquino, who was assassinated in 1983 when he returned to the Philippines to renew his opposition to President Ferdinand Marcos. Corazon Aquino ran for President againt Marcos, and she won the seat despite Marcos' attempt to portray himself the winner.

� It has often been said that Marcos was the first male chauvinist to underestimate me.

� I would rather die a meaningful death than to live a meaningless life.

Jane Austen (1775-1817)
Jane Austen is considered one of the foremost writers of the early 19th century. Her fiction focuses on relationships and the attempts by her heroes and heroines to find fortune and romance. Her ironic tone often comes through whether speaking as the narrator of a tale or through one of the characters.

Selected Jane Austen Quotations

� One half of the world cannot understand the pleasures of the other.

� A lady's imagination is very rapid; it jumps from admiration to love, from love to matrimony in a moment.

� It is always incomprehensible to a man that a woman should refuse an offer of marriage.

� Why not seize the pleasure at once? How often is happiness destroyed by preparation, foolish preparation!

� Nobody minds having what is too good for them.

� I do not want people to be agreeable, as it saves me that trouble of liking them.

Joan Baez (January 9, 1941 - )

Joan Baez, American folksinger, is of Mexican, Scottish, and English descent. Many of her songs have a political message, and she has been an activist for peace and human rights.

Selected Joan Baez Quotations

� I've never had a humble opinion. If you've got an opinion, why be humble about it?

� As long as one keeps searching, the answers come.

� The easiest kind of relationship is with ten thousand people, the hardest is with one.

� You don't get to choose how you're going to die. Or when. You can decide how you're going to live now.

Pearl Bailey (1918-1990)

Pearl Bailey, an entertainer who combined singing with ad libs, was in 1975 a special ambassador to the United Nations. She's perhaps most famous for her version of Hello, Dolly!

Selected Pearl Bailey Quotations:

� Everybody wants to do something to help, but nobody wants to be the first.

� A crown, if it hurts us, is not worth wearing.

� To talk to someone who does not listen is enough to tense the devil.

� We look into mirrors but we only see the effects of our times on us -- not our effects on others.

Faith Baldwin Quotes

�Character builds slowly, but it can be torn down with incredible swiftness.

�We, too, the children of the earth, have our moon phases all through any year; the darkness, the delivery from darkness, the waxing and waning.

�Time is a dressmaker specializing in alterations.

Lucille Ball (1911 - 1989)

Lucille Ball began her career in musical comedy, became a success in radio comedy, starred in several movie comedies, and achieved her greatest popular success with her TV show, I Love Lucy, first airing in 1951 and running until 1957. She also starred in The Lucy Show (1962-68) and Here's Lucy (1968-74). Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, who produced I Love Lucy together as well as starred in the show, were married from 1940 to 1960. Lucille Ball managed Desilu Productions from 1962 to 1967 and Lucille Ball Productions from 1967 to 1989.

Selected Lucille Ball Quotations

� I never thought I was funny. I don't think funny.

� I'm not funny. What I am is brave.

� The secret of staying young is to live honestly, eat slowly, and lie about your age.

� I would rather regret the things that I have done than the things that I have not.

� Once in his life, every man is entitled to fall madly in love with a gorgeous redhead.

� My God, I'm outliving my henna.

Clara Barton (December 25, 1821 - April 12, 1912)

Clara Barton, who had been a schoolteacher and the first woman to be a clerk at the US Patent Office, served in the Civil War nursing soldiers and distributing supplies for the sick and wounded. She spent four years tracking down missing soldiers at the end of the war. Clara Barton established the first permanent American Red Cross society and headed the organization until 1904.

Selected Clara Barton Quotations

� I may be compelled to face danger, but never fear it, and while our soldiers can stand and fight, I can stand and feed and nurse them.

� The conflict is one thing I've been waiting for.

I'm well and strong and young -- young enough to go to the front. If I cannot be a soldier, I'll help soldiers.

� I may sometimes be willing to teach for nothing, but if paid at all, I shall never do a man's work for less than a man's pay.

� Others are writing my biography, and let it rest as they elect to make it. I have lived my life, well and ill, always less well than I wanted it to be but it is, as it is, and as it has been; so small a thing, to have had so much about it!

Mary Catherine Bateson Quotes

Women's Voices: Quotations by Women

Most higher education is devoted to affirming the traditions and origins of an existing elite and transmitting them to new members.

Worlds can be found by a child and an adult bending down and looking together under the grass stems or at the skittering crabs in a tidal pool.

We are not what we know but what we are willing to learn.

Mary Ritter Beard (1876 - 1958)
Mary Ritter Beard was writing about women's history before women's history was an accepted academic field -- her major works were published in the 1930s and 1940s.

Selected Mary Ritter Beard Quotations

� The dogma of woman's complete historical subjection to men must be rated as one of the most fantastic myths ever created by the human mind.

� Woman's success in lifting men out of their way of life nearly resembling that of the beasts -- who merely hunted and fished for food, who found shelter where they could in jungles, in trees, and caves -- was a civilizing triumph.