Feminine Quotes

Shine the light of awareness on your disempowering beliefs and choose to substitute them with empowering beliefs. This way you will choose love over fear and your path to purpose becomes clear. ~ Sharon Kirstin

A woman is like a universe; there are many things that even she still needs to discover about herself. Men on the other hand are miners, which means they are in a better position to uncover, perceive and appreciate things about women that they themselves have not yet come to the full realization of. Men know more about women than they can tell (it's for their own safety that they keep their mouths shut and pretend like they don't know anything, lest they get slammed for claming to know anything at all about women in the first place). Sadly, women are losing out on a wealth of knowledge and understanding about themselves by debunking men's ideas and notions about them especially when it comes to their femininity and sensuality. I think there is a need for women to start gently and safely asking men what they 'inherently' know about their femininity. I'm not a chauvinist nor a proponent for men's rights, but I strongly believe that men hold the keys to a lot of treasure chests that most women are daily striving to open up. Perhaps you should start inviting your man to get a little bit more involved in your feminine/sensual journey. It's only a suggestion... ~ Lebo Grand

The coldness surprised him. It entered his vein, and the initiation proceeded. Veils were falling from large and solemn tableaux that Culafroy's eyes could not make out. Alberto took another snake and placed it on Culafroy's bare arm, about which it coiled just as the first had done. "You see, she's harmless." (Alberto always referred to snakes in the feminine.) Just as he felt his penis swelling between his fingers, so the sensitive Alberto felt in the child the mounting emotion that stiffened him and made him shudder. And the insidious friendship for snakes was born. ~ Jean Genet

Disappointment or disgust–Silas couldn't tell which–flickered in the girl's eyes. Remembering to give him a demure nod, she straightened her shawl and walked away. Silas watched her go. He couldn't swear on it, but he felt pretty sure the shawl-adjustment was more like the feminine version of a Mexican conquistador's cape-swish. ~ Alicia A. Willis

She saw that he had singled her out from the three, as a woman is singled out in such cases, for no reasoned purpose of further acquaintance, but in commonplace obedience to conjunctive orders from headquarters, unconsciously received by unfortunate men when the last intention of their lives is to be occupied with the feminine. ~ Thomas Hardy

What, then, of the priest's iconic representation of Christ at the altar? If there is no specifically masculine or feminine charism or ontology, the significance of the priest's maleness fades away. What matters - as patristic Christology recognized centuries ago with its dictum, 'That which is not assumed [by the Son of God in the incarnation] is not healed' - is that Christ became human, assuming and thereby healing the nature common to men and women. Although biologically a man, Christ assumed human nature in such a way as to include both men and women in his salvific work. And that means, in turn, that to refuse to allow a woman to preside at the Eucharist may be to say much more than opponents of women's ordination realize - namely, 'that women are not adequate icons of Christ.' The result, notes [Sarah] Hinlicky Wilson near the end of her book, is nothing less than 'to leave both their humanity and their salvation in doubt.' If women can't reflect the human nature of Christ at the altar, how then can they trust Christ's human nature to save them at all? ~ Wesley Hill

The woman's mission is not to enhance the masculine spirit, but to express the feminine; hers is not to preserve a man-made world, but to create a human world by the infusion of the feminine element into all of its activities. ~ Margaret Thatcher

My lord?"
Nick turned at the tentative, feminine voice, to find two young women standing nearby, watching him eagerly. Nick spoke, wary.
"Yes? "
"We - " one of them began to speak, then stopped, uncertain. The other nudged her toward him.
"Yes?"
"We are fans."
Nick blinked. "Of?"
"Of yours."
"Of mine."
"Indeed!" The second girl smiled broadly and stepped closer, holding out what looked suspiciously like -
Nick swore under his breath.
"Would you be willing to autograph our magazine? "
Nick held up a hand. "I would, girls, but you've got the wrong brother." He pointed to Gabriel. "That is Lord Nicholas."
Rock snorted as the two shifted their attention to the Marquess of Ralston, a dazzlingly handsome copy of their prey, and tittered their excitement.
Gabriel instantly eased into his role, turning a brilliant smile on the girls. "I would be happy to autograph your magazine." He took the journal and the pen they proffered and said, "You know, I must confess, this is the first time I've ever drawn the attention of ladies when in the company of my brother. Ralston has always been considered the more handsome of us."
"No!" the girls protested.
Nick rolled his eyes.
"Indeed. Ask anyone. They'll tell you it's the marquess who is the best specimen. Surely you've heard that." He looked up at them with a winning smile. "You can admit it, girls. My feelings shan't be hurt."
Gabriel h ~ Sarah MacLean

I think a woman gets more if she acts feminine. ~ Nancy Reagan

The wild nature has a vast integrity to it. It means to establish one's territory, to find one's pack, to be in one's body with certainty and pride regardless of the body's gifts and limitations, to speak and act in one's own behalf, to be aware, alert, to draw on the innate feminine powers of intuition and sensing, to come into one's cycles, to find what one belongs to, to rise with dignity, to retain as much consciousness as possible. ~ Clarissa Pinkola Estes

If you deny yourself access to the child within because you're too serious, you also block your connection to the divine Light and your feminine self. Every creator who's any good uses their feminine side to create with.. Whether a scientist working on a hunch, a painter working on the interplay of colors, or a musician dealing with the juxtaposition of notes and chords. ~ Stuart Wilde

Man makes history; woman is history. The reproduction of the species is feminine: it runs steadily and quietly through all species, animal or human, through all short-lived cultures. It is primary, unchanging, everlasting, maternal, plantlike, and cultureless. If we look back we find that it is synonymous with life itself. ~ Oswald Spengler

In a balanced viewpoint that includes both masculine and feminine perspective, healing is seen not as a technique, but as a process. ~ Jeanne Achterberg

The energy that moves life is the force of the Feminine. She is unstoppable. She is the source of all life, the mover of blood, the breather of breath, the flow of the river's water. The Feminine is life. We can feel Her moving and living in any moment we are open to Her, or as Her. ~ David Deida

She was in breach of that feminine law that states that no weakness may be shown by a woman to another woman without a sacrifice of equal value being made in return. ~ Zadie Smith

Our feminine friends have in common with Bonaparte the belief that they can succeed where everyone else has failed. ~ Albert Camus

The precedents for feminine self-expression run back through all the ages since the art of writing was invented ... The era may witness the first female engineer, motor truck chauffeur, radio broadcaster, head of an aviation school, or federal prohibition officer, but it has not produced the first thinking, creative, and writing woman by any means. ~ Mary Ritter Beard

One day, you're in a physical landscape you share with this bizarre and fundamentally alien creature, not alien because she's female but alien because you're a fool in love and there's nothing not alien about that. And then when she's gone, you're alone and all the strangeness and wonder have gone out of the landscape and you're still a fool but now nobody notices how many days in a row you wear the same socks and cleaning the shower doesn't make the girl smile anymore so everything smells a little worse and doesn't get fixed when it breaks. I missed the feminine touch - not just hers, but mine. I missed being half-boy, half-girl, part of a whole. Now that I was male in a male environment, it was harder to manifest her physical chick presence, no matter how many of her MAC lipsticks I set out on the coffee table in a basket like so many M&Ms. ~ Rob Sheffield

I suppose we should send someone to make sure the queen does not come to the wall also," the king jested.
"I would say that it is too late for that, my lord," a feminine voice answered from the group gathered in the courtyard. They all turned to find the queen dressed in chain mail and wearing a conical helmet on her head. ~ Alex George

That old queer Nietzsche had it right: Christianity was, at the end of the day, a feminine religion. ~ Michel Houellebecq

Every social trait labelled masculine or feminine is in truth a human trait. It is our human right to develop and contribute our talents whatever our race, sex, religion, ancestry, age. Human rights are indivisible! ~ Wilma Scott Heide

I don't mind ... the fun and games of being treated like a fragile flower. But as a physiologist working with the unromantic scientific facts of life, I find it hard to delude myself about feminine frailty. ~ Estelle Ramey

In fact he was as
lovesick as a high schooler of an especially sensitive sort who wonders if he dare share a poem with his
beloved or whether she will laugh at him. He does read her the poem and her feminine capacity for
romanticism for a moment approaches his own and they are suffused in a love trance, a state that so
ineluctably peels back the senses making them fresh again whatever ages the lovers might be. ~ Jim Harrison

Many people define beauty as skin deep, but I've found the beauty in physical and superficial changes that continue throughout the life of a woman. ~ Alyscia Cunningham

Design is a matter of balancing different needs and outlooks-practical and aesthetic, masculine and feminine, designer and client, dream and reality. ~ Alexa Hampton

The all American work ethic, destructive enough by itself, also packs a gender double standard that strip-mines the natural resources of both parents. It has taught us that as their earnings and success increase, men become "more manly," while women become "less feminine." This perverse cultural dynamic gives fathers an incentive to stay away from their families and kill themselves at work, while coercing mothers to limit their career commitment, which in turn limits their wages and shortchanges their families. ~ Letty Cottin Pogrebin

If the detective should suffer overmuch from the artistic temperament, and his fellow lodger should dwell overlong upon the fairness of a wrist or the timber of a feminine voice, so much the better for us. Literature never produced a relationship more symbiotic nor a warmer and more timeless friendship. ~ Loren D. Estleman

I believe and support the feminist movement, but I am not generally interested in considering women's rights in relation to equality with men, or in a competition with men, but rather within their own rights and feminine space. ~ Shirin Neshat

The result of this one-sided patriarchal stance, demonstrable in all areas of life, is an un integrated man who is attacked by his repressed side and often enough overwhelmed by it. This transpires not only in the fate of the individual man as seduction by a "lower" anima, but equally through seduction by a compensatory ideology, for example materialism, to which "spirit" men are especially susceptible.
The man wants to remain exclusively masculine and out of fear rejects the transformative contact with a woman of equal status. Negativizing the Feminine in the patriarchate prevents the man from experiencing woman as a thou of equal but different status, and hence from coming to terms with her. The consequence of the patriarchal male's haughtiness toward women leads to the inability to make any genuine contact with the Feminine, i.e., not only in a real woman but also with the Feminine in himself, the unconscious. Whenever an integral relationship to the Feminine remains undeveloped, however, this means that, due to his fear, the male is unable to break through to his own wholeness that also embraces the Feminine. Thus the patriarchal culture's separation from the Feminine and from the unconscious becomes one of the essential causes for the crisis of fear in which the patriarchal world now finds itself. ~ Erich Neumann

Your gracefulness and feminine charms always so tender, you make my heart smile and wonder! ~ Avijeet Das

In Tenochtitlan, Tezcoco and other cities there were groups of wise men known as tlamatinime. These scholars carried on the study of the ancient religious thinking of the Toltecs, which Tlacaelel had transformed into a mystical exaltation of war. Despite the popularity of the cult of the war-god, Huitzilopochtli, the tlamatinime preserved the old belief in a single supreme god, who was known under a variety of names. Sometimes he was called Tloque-Nahuaque, "Lord of the Close Vicinity," sometimes Ipalnemohuani, "Giver of Life," sometimes Moyocoyatzin, "He who Creates Himself." He also had two aspects, one masculine and one feminine. Thus he was also invoked as Ometeotl, "God of Duality," or given the double names Ometecuhtli and Omecihuatl, "Lord and Lady of Duality," Mictlantecuhtli and Mictecacihuatl, "Lord and Lady of the Region of Death," and others. ~ Miguel Leon-Portilla

The women I knew in those days liked the fact that I had a feminine streak, that I seemed to be sensitive and caring, that I didn't know the names of any NFL teams, that I could make a nice risotto. A lot of straight women love a female sensibility in a man, an enthusiasm that goes right up to, but unfortunately does not quite include, his being an actual woman. ~ Jennifer Finney Boylan

Evidence that [feminine aesthetic preferences and ways of expressing oneself] may be hardwired comes from the fact that they typically appear early in childhood and often in contradiction to one's socialization. [ ... ] This indicates that some aspects of feminine verbal and aesthetic expression precede and/or supersede gender socialization. ~ Julia Serano

Rugged and straightforward as he was, there was something in his nature that was purely feminine in its tenderness ~ Oscar Wilde

You don't have to apologize for being feminine in a male space. ~ Charissa Thompson

I am positive that flexibility is a feminine characteristic. ~ Emma Bonino

I actually chafe at describing myself as masculine. For one thing, masculinity itself is such an expansive territory, encompassing boundaries of nationality, race, and class. Most importantly, individuals blaze their own trails across this landscape. And it's hard for me to label the intricate matrix of my gender as simply masculine.

To me, branding individual self-expression as simply feminine or masculine is like asking poets: Do you write in English or Spanish? The question leaves out the possibilities that the poetry is woven in Cantonese or Ladino, Swahili or Arabic. The question deals only with the system of language that the poet has been taught. It ignores the words each writer hauls up, hand over hand, from a common well. The music words make when finding themselves next to each other for the first time. The silences echoing in the space between ideas. The powerful winds of passion and belief that move the poet to write. ~ Leslie Feinberg

If we can get that realistic feminine morality working for us, if we can trust ourselves and so let women think and feel that an unwanted child or an oversize family is wrong
not ethically wrong, not against the rules, but morally wrong, all wrong, wrong like a thalidomide birth, wrong like taking a wrong step that will break your neck
if we can get feminine and human morality out from under the yoke of a dead ethic, then maybe we'll begin to get somewhere on the road that leads to survival. ~ Ursula K. Le Guin

You can hardly say of your soul what sex it is. But if you pay close attention, you will see that the most masculine man has a feminine soul, and the most feminine woman a masculine soul. ~ C.G. Jung

For me, women's ski wear has always been black and, again, not as feminine or sexy as I think it could look while still having the technology there. ~ Stella McCartney

Composing a piece of music is very feminine. It is sensitive, emotional, contemplative. By comparison, doing housework is positively masculine. ~ Barbara Kolb

I like very girly, retro inspired, feminine, floral things. I'm not very edgy. ~ Ariana Grande

And I was worried that if I looked too feminine, I would not be taken seriously. I really wanted to wear my shiny lip gloss and my girly skirt, but I decided not to. I wore a very serious, very manly, and very ugly suit. ~ Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

This is my friend Veronica," I told him. "And this is Kaidan."
"Oh, I've heard all about you." Veronica gave him a big smile.
His brow elevated, but he didn't take the bait. Instead, he stared at me funny. "Nice wart." Leaning forward without touching me, he flicked the wart from the tip of my nose.
Veronica let out a loud cackle, proving she should be the one in my costume.
"I told you it was stupid!" She gloated.
With my pointer finger, I moved the paint around my nose to fill in the blank spot. When I finished, he was still watching me.
"Your hair's grown a lot," I said to him.
"So has your bottom."
My eyes rounded and blood rushed to my face. Veronica hooted with hilarity, bending at the waist. Even Jay let out a loud snicker, the traitor.
I wished Kaidan weren't so perceptive, but it was true. The feminine curves that had always eluded me were finally making an appearance. Stupid tight dress.
"Dude, you can get away with anything," said the pirate to the straight-faced ape.
"I meant it as a compliment."
"That was awesome." Veronica grabbed Jay by the hand. "Come on. Let's go find me a drink."
She winked at me as they ambled away. I gave my attention to the dry, trampled grass and scattered cans for a moment before working up the nerve to say something.
"My dad gave me a cell phone." And a car. And a ton of money.
Kaidan set the ape head on the ground and pulled his phone from a fuzzy pocket, blowi ~ Wendy Higgins

And then those dusky lashes fluttered up, revealing a lambent gleam of jungle green.
His hands circled her waist and she slowly flexed his hips, a wholly male sound of satisfaction escaping him when her eyes fluttered shut and she gasped.
And then a small, secret, feminine smile appeared on her lips and Chase's control snapped like a power line in a high wind.
Wrapping her in his arms, he began to pump into her in a slow, relentless rhythm that was both too much and not enough. ~ Caroline Cross

The feminine in each of us longs for deeper love
and tries to find it in intimate relationship, family, or friends. ~ David Deida

Whenever a female takes a strong stand for herself, the majority of the time they have to really, really narrow it down to being feminine and wearing dresses and just being lipstick chic. ~ Michelle Rodriguez

Berthe Morisot was a painter full of eighteenth-century delicacy and grace; in a word, the last elegant and 'feminine' artists since Fragonard. ~ Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Too flowery. Too short. Too pink." [Ciara] went through all her outrageously feminine, frilly, and sometimes almost see-through tops and I shot each one down. "Too cropped. Too rufflely. Too strappy. That's still pink. Not enough shirt." - Andy ~ H.R. Willaston

Being a woman, I have found the road rougher than had I been born a man. Different defenses, different codes of ethics, different approaches to problems and personalities are a woman's lot. I have preferred to shun what is known as feminine wiles, the subterfuge of subtlety, reliance on tears and coquetry to shape my way. I am forthright, often blunt. I have learned to be a realist despite my romantic, emotional nature. I have no illusions that age, the rigors of my profession, disappointments, and unfulfilled dreams have not left their mark.

I am proud that I have carved my path on earth almost entirely by my own efforts, proud that I have compromised in my career only when I had no other recourse, when financial or contractual commitments dictated. Proud that I have never been involved in a physical liaison unless I was deeply attracted or in love. Proud that, whatever my worldly goods may be, they have been achieved by my own labors. ~ Joan Fontaine

I would predicate that in all great works of genius masculine and feminine elements in the personality find expression, whether this androgynous nature is played out sexually or not. ~ May Sarton

When a woman is full of cockiness, I wonder what makes her so insecure.
When a man is full of ego, I wonder what he's holding onto. ~ Nikki Rowe

It was the era that I later analyzed, the "feminine mystique" era, [when] "career woman" was a dirty word. And so I didn't want a career anymore. [But] I had to do something. So I started freelancing for women's magazines. ~ Betty Friedan

My favorite part of my appearance is my height. I'm five foot one and I feel feminine being small. ~ Alanna Ubach

Somewhere in the shadow cast by every famous man is a feminine victim. ~ Jules Renard

I suddenly recall the arpeggios of laughter lilting across the tender, springtime grass-gay-welling, far-floating, fluent, spontaneous, a bell-like feminine fluting, then suppressed; as though snuffed swiftly and irrevocably beneath the quiet solemnity of the vespered air now vibrant with somber chapel bells. ~ Ralph Ellison

The Sacred Bombshell knows that her creative feminine energy is a catalyst. She remembers her womb wisdom. ~ Abiola Abrams

Real liberation for men means that they can explore and integrate their feminine aspects of consciousness. ~ Marianne Williamson

For a woman to be able to dominate and also be feminine and soft, that's a talent. And its not all about appearance. A woman who has a brain, who is street-smart and book-smart, that woman is very, very sexy to me. ~ Usher

I think, by nature you know, I'm very attracted and I gravitate toward the very strong girl who can watch a ballgame, but who's also extremely feminine. ~ Omari Hardwick

I want to be the one you turn to for guidance and comfort. I want to create things that become a source of stability for people, some sort of home. Write books that you read until the edges are torn and songs that you listen to in your headphones on a lonely night bus, taking you somewhere far far away.I want to be so sure of my own place in the universe that no one could ever doubt me. What I'm about or what I'm here to do. I want to be a safe aura in a sea of worries and uncertainty. I want to stand for clarity where only chaos seems to grow. ~ Charlotte Eriksson

I think Picasso is more feminine than Matisse. ~ Gary Hume

Oh wondrous,' murmured Lin Chung. 'Oh, water, mistress of earth, valley spirit, eternal feminine!'
'Taoism again?' Phryne leaned close to hear what he was whispering.
'From the "Tao Te Ching." The old Master should have seen this. All made by water, the female, cold, moon principle.'
'Yin,' said Phryne. 'This is the womb of the earth.'
'Indeed.' He took her hand. 'Completely foreign to all male, hot, sun creatures.'
'Like you?'
'Like me. Yang can only admire and tremble.'
'Come along.' She led him into the centre of the huge space. 'We don't want to get lost in the earthmother's insides. ~ Kerry Greenwood

The finer literature, indeed, is characterized by a certain suffusion of the feminine flavor, the finer, the more ideal, thought plumed with sentiment; even science loves to spring from its feet, philosophy affect the clouds to inspire and edify. ~ Amos Bronson Alcott

Incidentally, one has to be very careful with that 'Bridegroom' imagery. It is so very apt to land one in Male and Female Principles, Eleusis, and the womb of the Great Mother. And that sort of thing doesn't make much appeal to well-balanced women, who look on it as just another example of men's hopeless romanticism about sex, and who are apt either to burst out laughing or sniff a faint smell of drains. ~ Dorothy L. Sayers

Pink reminds me of my love for dance. My youth. The innocence of being young. Tutus. Strawberry frosting on a vanilla cake (my favorite). And lipstick. I love lipstick. It also reminds me that I should take pride in my feminine traits, in being a woman. There is nothing remotely wrong with enjoying femininity. Curves. Hips. Lips. Empathy. Vulnerability. Sensuality. Patience. Intuition. ~ R.B. O'Brien

The misnamed "feminine" woman, so admired by her creator, man the woman who is acquiescent in her inferiority and who has swallowed man's image of her as his ordained helpmate and no more is in reality the "masculine" woman. The truly feminine woman "cannot help burning with that inner rage that comes from having to identify with her exploiter's negative image of her," and having to conform to her persecutor's idea of femininity and its man-decreed limitations. ~ Elizabeth Gould Davis

Patience is one of those feminine qualities which have their origin in our oppression but should be preserved after our liberation. ~ Simone De Beauvoir

To what end do we sit together under the moon? Why circle in together?
We sit to be heard. To speak without being judged. To share our stories without having to make an articulate point.
We sit to listen. To rekindle the ancient art of listening with open hearts. To know other women on a heart to heart level.
We sit to spill tears and laughter, and to hold on to a strong thread of silent solidarity.
We sit to see truth. To have parts of ourselves revealed to us. To have the stories of others laid bare. To hear words spoken that shoot into the heart like a lightning strike. To come to understand a wisdom unveiled in silence.
We sit to dig our toes into the cosmos. To be pulled into the expansive river of consciousness that we didn't know existed. To experience a oneness with humankind and the universe that feels like floating along on gentle rapids. We meet together to have our cynical minds opened by a shooting star's approving appearance, or to watch the clouds pass over the face of the moon and be flushed with the deep sense of belonging. ~ Lucy AitkenRead

American sports are quite masculine. And football - although it's still played by men all over the world - football compared to American football is quite feminine in its artistry. And there's no padding. It's America's loss, though. ~ Noel Gallagher

When I think of a bombshell, I immediately think of Bridget Bardot. She's a woman who is so secure and just oozes sexy. Whether you are super feminine or more into that boyish style, you just own your look. ~ Candice Swanepoel

In order to live a life of nonviolence one must be willing to soften -- to open one's heart to others, to forgive, to be compassionate, to be graceful, to be loving toward others and oneself, to be kind. We must be willing, in other words, to reject hardness as the measure of power and justice, and to embrace, instead, so much of what is commonly associated with the feminine. Indeed, it is no longer tenable – if it ever were – to assess and critique nonviolence in terms of whether or not it conforms to some masculine idea of the justice-seeking self. ~ Alycee J. Lane

Feminism? It might change society, but it will certainly not change the man. ~ Ljupka Cvetanova

If you're not comfortable with a strong woman you're not comfortable with your own feminine instincts. You're not comfortable, period. You're going to be threatened by everything that's not exactly like you are ... and that is the measure any man. ~ Madonna Ciccone

If your prayers are not fertile, what are they? How do you make the Buddy System feminine? Pink is feminine. ~ Charlotte Fairchild

A woman should never be seen eating or drinking, unless it be lobster salad and Champagne, the only true feminine and becoming viands. ~ George Gordon Byron

Unless one becomes a womb one never becomes pregnant with god. One cannot conquer god, one can't be aggressive - that is the sure way to fail. One can only surrender and allow god to happen. That's what the quality of being feminine really is. That is the essential core of meditation. ~ Rajneesh

Amadora was never far from her understanding of women, glamour, or the fine line between elegant and camp, vulgar and vibrant, life and dreams ... Color, she believed, was feminine. She said that women were masters of color, evidenced in changing their hair color, using eye shadow, mascara, powder, rouge, lipstick. You could see it in their jewelry- silvers and golds, gems, stones, pearls of every hue. It was in their clothing, from what they slept in to what they danced in. Their shoes. Their purses. Ribbons, barrettes, clips, and tiaras. Veils. All this color to enhance their sex appeal, while men, she felt, were ill-equipped to handle color with the same ease. ~ Whitney Otto

I carried the books to my room and read through the night. I loved the fiery pages of Mary Wollstonecraft, but there was a single line written by John Stuart Mill that, when I read it, moved the world: "It is a subject on which nothing final can be known." The subject Mill had in mind was the nature of women. Mill claimed that women have been coaxed, cajoled, shoved and squashed into a series of feminine contortions for so many centuries, that it is now quite impossible to define their natural abilities or aspirations.

Blood rushed to my brain; I felt an animating surge of adrenaline, of possibility, of a frontier being pushed outward. Of the nature of women, nothing final can be known. Never had I found such comfort in a void, in the black absence of knowledge. It seemed to say: whatever you are, you are woman. ~ Tara Westover

Satyam Shivam Sundaram Shiva is truth. Shiva is beauty Shiva is the masculine. Shiva is the feminine Shiva is a Suryavanshi. Shiva is a Chandravanshi ~ Amish Tripathi

One of the things women have to get out of their mindset is the notion of what a bitch is. A bitch is nice. She's sweet as a Georgia peach. She smiles and she is feminine. She just doesn't make decisions based on the fear of losing a man. ~ Sherry Argov

My rocking out didn't make me particularly popular with the boys or girls. It wasn't cute or feminine. I was more of a ... weirdo. ~ Jill Sobule

His words came back to her then, in her time of need, as if he were standing close to her, his manly frame mere inches from her feminine curves, the very scent of his honest laboring body surrounding her like the headiest perfume, and she heard his words as if he were, that moment, whispering them in her ear. ~ Neil Gaiman

Lillian moved forward to meet her, studying her with curiosity. They had met before, on infrequent occasions, and she found it strange to see Dagny Taggart wearing an evening gown. It was a black dress with a bodice that fell as a cape over one arm and shoulder, leaving the other bare: the naked shoulder was the gown's only ornament. Seeing her in the suits she wore, one never thought of dagny taggart's body. The black dress seemed excessively revealing – because it was astonishing to discover that the lines of her shoulder were fragile and beautiful, and that the diamond band on the wrist of her naked arm gave her the most feminine of all aspects: the look of being chained. ~ Ayn Rand

His mind was completely occupied with the image of Aline by the river, the rich mass of her pinned-up hair, the exquisite lines of her body and throat.
Time had only made Aline's beauty more eloquent. Her body was ripe and fully developed, the form of a woman in her prime. With maturity, her face had become more delicately sculpted, the nose thinner, the lips faded from deep rose to the pale shade of pink that tinted the inside of a seashell. And there was that damned, never-forgotten beauty mark, the festive dark fleck that lured his attention to the tender corner of her mouth. ~ Lisa Kleypas

I didn't and don't want to be a 'feminine' version or a diluted version or a special version or a subsidiary version or an ancillary version, or an adapted version of the heroes I admire. I want to be the heroes themselves. ~ Joanna Russ

I don't think I could ever live with either a man or a woman for a long time. Male and female are attractive to my mind, but when it comes to the sexual act I am afraid. In every situation I need a lot of stimulation before I am conquered by the forces of passion and lust. But confusion, before and after, is the dominant factor.
I dreamed many times about a mature man with experience who would have the vigour of a boy but an adult's polished methods. Strangely enough, I also dreamed about women of my mother's age who were ideal lovers. These dreams came superimposed on one another. Sometimes the masculine element was dominant, sometimes the feminine one. At other times I wasn't sure. I saw a female body with male organs or a male body with female ones. These pictures, blended together in my mind, occasionally brought pleasure but more often pain. ~ Adam Thirlwell

The tragedy of feminine design is that it receives so little official support. Most of the world's design schools, having been organized by men, encourage a masculine approach, even when they are run by women. Yet many designers who are male in the biological sense have a feminine approach to design. ~ Tom Turner

I am a cutter, you see. Also a snipper, a slicer, a carver, a jabber. I am a very special case. I have a purpose. My skin, you see, screams. It's covered with words - cook, cupcake, kitty, curls - as if a knife-wielding first-grader learned to write on my flesh. I sometimes, but only sometimes, laugh. Getting out of the bath and seeing, out of the corner of my eye, down the side of a leg: babydoll. Pull on a sweater and, in a flash of my wrist: harmful. Why these words? Thousands of hours of therapy have yielded a few ideas from the good doctors. They are often feminine, in a Dick and Jane, pink vs. puppy dog tails sort of way. Or they're flat-out negative. Number of synonyms for anxious carved in my skin: eleven. The one thing I know for sure is that at the time, it was crucial to see these letters on me, and not just see them, but feel them. Burning on my left hip: petticoat.

And near it, my first word, slashed on an anxious summer day at age thirteen: wicked. I woke up that morning, hot and bored, worried about the hours ahead. How do you keep safe when your whole day is as wide and empty as the sky? Anything could happen. I remember feeling that word, heavy and slightly sticky across my pubic bone. My mother's steak knife. Cutting like a child along red imaginary lines. Cleaning myself. Digging in deeper. Cleaning myself. Pouring bleach over the knife and sneaking through the kitchen to return it. Wicked. Relief. The rest of the day, I spent ministering to my ~ Gillian Flynn

I realized that lacking the feminine, the language had communicated to me in subtle ways that women were nonentities, that women counted mostly as they related to men. ~ Sue Monk Kidd

Not even girls want to be girls so long as our feminine archetype lacks force, strength, and power. ~ William Moulton Marston

Asking men to cut away their "feminine" traits asks them to cut away half their humanity, just as asking women to suppress their "masculine" traits asks them to deny their full autonomy.
What makes us human is not one or the other - the fist or the open palm - it's our ability to embrace both, and choose the appropriate action for the situation we're in. Because to deny one half - to burn down the world or refuse to defend the world from those who would burn it - is to deny our humanity and become something less than human. ~ Kameron Hurley

That so-called feminine ardor for clothes shopping had been flagging for some time. Between 1980 and 1986, at the same time that women were buying more houses, cars, restaurant dinners, and health care services, they were buying fewer pieces of clothing-from dresses to underwear. ~ Susan Faludi

On the subject of the feminist business, I just never think ... of qualities which are specifically feminine or masculine. I suppose I divide people into two classes: the Irksome and the Non-Irksome without regard to sex. Yes and there are the Medium Irksome and the Rare Irksome. ~ Flannery O'Connor

She appeared to him more beautiful than he had ever seen her yet. Beautiful with a beauty which was wholly feminine and angelic, with a complete beauty which would have made Petrarch sing and Dante kneel. [...] ~ Victor Hugo, Les Misérables.

Precisely because I'm a man who is attracted to women, there may be some things that I have to say as a spectator of feminine grace that women themselves may not be able to see. ~ William T. Vollmann

How fares the thumb, boy? well? Aye, merry, 'tis the sign of the penis. With the women, look you, observe the ear. The parts appear and come together. So obesity and malice. So grumbling and nagging. So gossip, envy, spite, and avarice. Slowly settling into. So feminine weakness. Heartless piety. Savage morals. They come together. No more goody geedge. Ruthless, lifelong revenge. Zrrr. Grease in a cold pan. Stay off from gingerly lobed and delicately whorled ones. Thus appear the parts. Mind your uncle, boy, who knows. And the men then. Lewd speech and slovenly habits. And the peasant's suspicion, his cruelty and rancor, his anger, drunkenness, pig-headed ignorance and bestiality. Inevitable they should be parts. Hoolyhoohoo. All in the normal course of nature. And they were saying we had evolved. What did it mean? But, he said in a voice that was clearly audible, I protest this world of unilluminated cocks. He caught the sense of his own words - so absurd - and his body began to shake - half in laughter, half in despair. ~ William H. Gass

Womankind always seems to be able to see a dozen steps into the future, far ahead of what men are able to see. And they have strength where we do not. ~ Roman Payne

We are born male or female, but not masculine or feminine. ~ Sandra Bartky

A tiny smile played over his lips as he glanced down at my hand. "Do you mean to win me over with feminine wiles? I must admit it is a more diverting notion than your usual method of screaming at me like a fishwife."
I did not rise to the bait. I simply looked at him. "Please."
He caught his breath, a slow smile warming his features. "My god, you are trying to seduce me."
"I am not." I said primly. "I am merely trying to get your attention."
He bent swiftly and kissed me hard, pulling back so suddenly I nearly toppled over. "I believe I have already made it quite clear you have my attention. ~ Deanna Raybourn