Welcome to the web’s most comprehensive site of quotations by women. 43,939 quotations are searchable by topic, by author's name, or by keyword. Many of them appear in no other collection. And new ones are added continually.
Search by Topic:
Find quotations by TOPIC (coffee, love, dogs)
or search alphabetically below.
Search by Last Name:
Search by Keyword:
Florynce R. Kennedy
-
“Oppressed people are frequently very oppressive when first liberated. And why wouldn't they be? They know best two positions. Somebody's foot on their neck or their foot on somebody's neck.”
-
“Where a system of oppression has become institutionalized it is unnecessary for individuals to be oppressive.”
-
“Every form of bigotry can be found in ample supply in the legal system of our country.”
-
“Here I am a woman attorney being told I can't practice law in slacks by a judge dressed in drag.”
-
“My parents gave us a fantastic sense of security and worth. By the time the bigots got around to telling us we were nobody, we already knew we were somebody.”
-
“Being a mother is a noble status, right? Right. So why does it change when you put 'unwed' or 'welfare' in front of it?”
-
“There are very few jobs that actually require a penis or vagina. All other jobs should be open to everybody.”
-
“The biggest sin is sitting on your ass.”
-
“Unity in a Movement situation can be overrated. If you were the Establishment, which would you rather see coming in the door: one lion or five hundred mice?”
-
“Don't agonize. Organize.”
-
“... prostitutes don't sell their bodies, they rent their bodies. Housewives sell their bodies when they get married ...”
-
“You get a hundred dollars a week for filing, and a hundred dollars a night for fucking, but you don't get nuthin' for filing, and fucking, and cleaning, and cooking, and washing, and ironing, and chauffering, and nursing, and sewing, and ...”
-
“Trying to help an oppressed person is like trying to put your arm around somebody with a sunburn.”
-
“The question arises ... whether all lawyers are the same. This is like asking whether everything that gets into a sewer is garbage.”
-
“I know we're termites. But if all the termites got together, the house would fall down.”
-
“He's sitting there in a long black dress gathered at the yoke, and I said, 'Judge, if you won't talk about what I'm wearing, I won't talk about what you're wearing,' because it occurred to me that a judge in a skirt telling me not to wear pants was just a little bit ludicrous. It's interesting to speculate how it developed that in two of the most anti-feminist institutions, the church and the law court, the men are wearing the dresses.”
-
“... in a rape situation, a jury can be made to believe a woman almost invites rape when she's wearing tight pants or jeans, whereas a man in an expensive coat doesn't suggest he should be mugged, and wearing a diamond doesn't mean you are inviting robbery.”
-
“There's no way that I know of to avoid pain absolutely, but suffering is the interpretation we choose to place on the pain we encounter.”
-
“I'm just a loudmouthed middle-age colored lady ... and a lot of people think I'm crazy. Maybe you do too, but I never stop to wonder why I'm not like other people. The mystery to me is why more people aren't like me.”
-
“Now, see there. Just because I'm wearing my Super-Dike sweatshirt, you think I'm a lesbian. I guess if I were wearing a string of pearls, you'd think I was an oyster.”
-
“Most people are not taught to understand that the two o'clock orgasm leads to the three o'clock feeding.”
-
“You've got to rattle your cage door. You've got to let them know that you're in there, and that you want out. Make noise. Cause trouble. You may not win right away, but you'll sure have a lot more fun.”
-
“Freedom is like taking a bath — you have to keep doing it every day!”
-
“Horizontal hostility may be expressed in sibling rivalry or in competitive dueling which wrecks not only office tranquility or suburban domesticity but also some radical political groups and, it must be sadly said, some women's liberation groups. ... [it is] misdirected anger that rightly should be focused on the external causes of oppression.”
-
“Any woman who still thinks marriage is a fifty-fifty proposition is only proving that she doesn't understand either men or percentages.”
Florynce R. Kennedy, U.S. lawyer
(1916 - 2000)