Spinsters Quotes - Page 2

• America... where law and custom alike are based upon the dreams of spinsters...

  Bertrand Russell

  Dream, Law, America

  "Marriage and Morals".

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• I had two spinster aunts who were seamstresses, and of course unemployed in the 1930s, but the union gave them a life. They had a couple of weeks in the country for a union installation and they had educational programs and all sorts of things. There was a life, you know, a real community.

  Noam Chomsky

  Country, Couple, Real

  Source: www.iww.org

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• Was this some new level of depravity? Had he developed a spinster fetish?

  Lisa Kleypas

  Levels, Depravity, Fetish

  Lisa Kleypas (2010). “Married by Morning”, p.6, St. Martin's Press

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• Monks, nuns, long-term spinsters and bachelors and permanent homosexuals are all, in a reproductive sense, aberrant. Society has bred them, but they have failed to return the compliment.

  Desmond Morris

  Long, Return, Compliment

  desmond morris (1967). “tha naked ape”

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• As for critics, one mediocre writer is more valuable than ten good critics. They are like haughty, barren spinsters lodged in a maternity ward.

  Peter Greenaway

  Maternity, Barren, Mediocre

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• Could one count such dilettantes and old spinsters as that mawkish apostle of virginity, Mainlander, as a genuine German? In the last analysis he probably was a Jew (all Jews become mawkish when they moralize).

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Lasts, Analysis, Genuine

  Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1974). “The Gay Science: With a Prelude in Rhymes and an Appendix of Songs”, Vintage

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• She could become a spinster, like Emily Dickinson, writing poems full of dashes and brilliance, and never gaining weight.

  Jeffrey Eugenides

  Writing, Weight, Brilliance

  Jeffrey Eugenides (2011). “The Marriage Plot: A Novel”, p.13, Macmillan

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• The only thing the women were after was just the chance to help the world on. But some men were so dreadfully afraid of them that they refused to understand, and talked about 'shrieking sisterhoods' and 'disappointed spinsters' and rubbish of that sort.

  Nancy Astor

  Sisterhood, Men, Rubbish

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• Alexia suspected Lord Maccon's handling was a tad more than was strictly called for under the circumstances, but she secretly enjoyed the sensation. After all, how often did a spinster of her shelf life get manhandled by an earl of Lord Maccon's peerage? She had better take advantage of the situation.

  Gail Carriger

  Lord, Advantage, Shelves

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• But the saints are never the kind of killjoy spinster aunts who go in for faultfinding and lack all sense of humor. (Nor should the Karl Barth who so loved and understood Mozart be regarded as such.)For humor is a mysterious but unmistakable charism inseparable from Catholic faith, and neither the "progressives" nor the "integralists" seem to possess it - the latter even less than the former.

  Hans Urs von Balthasar

  Aunt, Catholic, Saint

  Hans Urs von Balthasar (2007). “The Office of Peter and the Structure of the Church, 2nd Edition”, p.184, Ignatius Press

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• Widows are more skillful anglers for husbands than spinsters, and many marry several times. This is a social injustice to spinsters. "One man one woman," is surely as fair a cry as "One man one vote." As there is scarcely one man for each woman, what right has one woman to two, three, or four men in succession? She may reply, "By the right of conquest." But, then, is she not reducing others to unhappy courses or to become old maids?... Society, for the interests of all, should discourage the remarriage of widows.

  Tennessee Celeste Claflin

  Husband, Men, Two

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• Marriage has for women many equivalents of joining a mass movement. It offers them a new purpose in life, a new future and a new identity (a new name). The boredom of spinsters and of women who can no longer find joy and fulfillment in marriage stems from an awareness of a barren, spoiled life. By embracing a holy cause and dedicating their energies and substance to its advancement, they find a new life full of purpose and meaning.

  Eric Hoffer

  Marriage, Names, Boredom

  Eric Hoffer (1980). “The True Believer”

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• It is shameful that there are so few women in science. [...] In China there are many, many women in physics. There is a misconception in America that women scientists are all dowdy spinsters. This is the fault of men. In Chinese society, a woman is valued for what she is, and men encourage her to accomplishments yet she remains eternally feminine.

  Chien-Shiung Wu

  Men, America, Chinese

  "Queen of Physics". "Newsweek" no. 61, 20, May 20, 1963.

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• Husbands and wives talk of the cares of matrimony, and bachelors and spinsters bear them.

  Wilkie Collins

  Husband, Wife, Care

  Wilkie Collins (2015). “Greatest Mystery Novels of Wilkie Collins”, p.260, e-artnow sro

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• The duke contents himself mainly with attempting to rule the world and other suchlike nonsense. When one is guiding the patterns of the social universe, a single spinster preternatural is unlikely to cause one undue distress.

  Gail Carriger

  World, Patterns, Causes

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• The nineteenth-century wave of feminism was started by older women who had been through the radicalizing experience of getting married and becoming the legal chattel of their husbands (or the equally radicalizing experience of not getting married and being treated as spinsters).

  Gloria Steinem

  Marriage, Husband, Feminism

  Gloria Steinem (2012). “Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions”, p.331, Open Road Media

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• Here is the full list of the banned words I used: active homosexual; career women; Third World; blacks; Asians; Australasia; Bangalore; primitive African tribes; crippled; in a wheelchair; hare lip; ethnic minorities; handicapped; spinster; committed suicide; gypsies; Bombay; illegitimate daughter; air hostess; Siamese twins; Calcutta; deaf ears; illegal asylum seeker; province of Northern Ireland; grandmother; bachelor.

  Rod Liddle

  Daughter, Suicide, Grandmother

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• Man is potentially a son, and woman is potentially a mother; woman depends on the dependence of man. The spinster, if pathetic at all, is pathetic because she has no one to look after, not because there is no one to look after her. Bear in mind that the conventional spinster keeps a canaary as a substitute for a husband.

  Stella Benson

  Mother, Husband, Son

  Stella Benson (1916). “I Pose”

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• Even Alexia, spinster that she was, was given an allowance large enough to dress her to the height of fashion— although she did tend to stick to trends a little too precisely. The poor thing could not help it. Her choice of clothing simply lacked soul.

  Gail Carriger

  Fashion, Choices, Soul

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• After all, if spinster chaperons required their own spinster chaperons there simply wouldn't be enough to go around.

  Anne Stuart

  Enough, Ifs

  Anne Stuart (2012). “The Devil's Waltz”, p.284, Harlequin

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• TO ALL THE ambulance drivers firewatchers air-raid wardens nurses canteen workers airplane spotters rescue workers mathematicians vicars vergers shopgirls chorus girls librarians debutantes spinsters fishermen retired sailors servants evacuees Shakespearean actors and mystery novelists WHO WON THE WAR.

  Connie Willis

  Girl, War, Airplane

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• I know so well what becomes of unmarried women who aren't prepared to occupy a position. I've seen such pitiful cases in the South barely tolerated spinsters living upon the grudging patronage of sister's husband or brother's wife! stuck away in some little mouse-trap of a room encouraged by one in-law to visit another little birdlike women without any nest eating the crust of humility all their life! Is that the future that we've mapped out for ourselves?

  Tennessee Williams

  Brother, Husband, Humility

  Tennessee Williams (1996). “The Glass Menagerie”, p.12, Heinemann

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• Always be civil to the girls, you never know who they may marry' is a aphorism which has saved many an English spinster from being treated like an Indian widow.

  Nancy Mitford

  Girl, Widows, May

  Love in a Cold Climate (1949) pt. 1, ch. 2

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• I like to eat alone in restaurants, with a book, particularly if I am out of town, alone, on business. It's relaxing. I feel not even a twinge of embarrassment. Is this gender-related? Is there a lingering feeling among women that if they are alone in public, they will be judged to be spinsters or spinsters-to-be?

  Gene Weingarten

  Book, Feelings, Towns

  "Chatological Humor: The Big Fat Debate, Part 2". Live Q&A, www.washingtonpost.com. February 17, 2009.

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• Every blue-stocking will remain a spinster as long as there are sensible men on the earth.
  [Fr., Toute fille lettree restera fille toute sa vie, quand il n'y aura que des hommes senses sur la terre.]

  Jean-Jacques Rousseau

  Women, Blue, Long

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