Quotations

If you're looking for an interesting quotation for a speech or paper, or if you're just interested in the things political women have said over the years, then this is the place for you. Every week we'll be adding new items - if you have any you think we should know about (and can tell us who said them and when), then email them to us at cfwd@cfwd.org.uk

Every political good carried to the extreme must be productive of evil.

Mary Woolestonecraft, Feminist, Philiosopher, Writer. 1759 - 1797

Whether women are better than men I cannot say - but I can say they are certainly no worse.

Golda Meir, 1898 - 1978, Prime Minister of Israel 1969 - 1974

I do not want anyone to vote for me solely because I am a woman - nor to vote against me solely for that reason.

Winifred Coombe-Tennant, Welsh suffragette, Liberal politician and much else besides

I keep my ego in my handbag

Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, World Bank Managing Director and former Nigerian Finance & Foreign Minister

Pioneers may be picturesque figures, but they are often rather lonely ones.

Nancy, Viscountess Astor, first woman MP (took her seat 1 December 1919)

I took a gamble: to exercise leadership without losing my feminine nature.

Michelle Bachelet, President of Chile

Human rights are women's rights and women's rights are human rights.

Hillary Rodham Clinton, US Secretary of State

Life here is hellish for a woman in politics unless she is elderly and ugly.

Edith Cresson, France's first woman Prime Minister

If you want to push something in politics, you're accused of being aggressive, and that's not supposed to be a good thing in a woman. If you get upset and show it, you're accused of being emotional.

Mary Harney, Irish politician

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

Nancy, Lady Astor, the first woman MP to take her seat in the House of Commons

One reason I don't drink is that I want to know when I am having a good time

Nancy Astor

In politics, if you want anything said, ask a man. If you want it done, ask a woman.

Margaret Thatcher, MP and Britain's first woman prime minister

You can't switch on peace like a light.

Mo Mowlam, Labour MP and Secretary of State for Northern Ireland

There are hazards in anything one does, but greater hazards in doing nothing.

Baroness Shirley Williams

In politics, guts is all.

Barbara Castle

Never to lose your temper with the press or the public is a major rule of public life.

Christabel Pankhust, suffragette

If you want to be constructive in politics, the less you look back, the better. If you do look back then it can only be to learn for yourself through the events that have taken place.

Angela Merkel, first woman German Chancellor

There is a special place in hell reserved for women who do not help other women.

Madeleine Albright, former US Secretary of State

We allow our ignorance to prevail upon us and make us think we can survive alone, alone in patches, alone in groups, alone in races, alone even in genders.

Maya Angelou, American author

In societies where men are truly confident of their own worth, women are not merely tolerated, but valued.

Aung San Suu Kyi, Burmese democracy leader

There is, I suppose, no occupation in the world which has an influence on the efficiency and happiness of the members of nearly all other occupations so continuous and so permeating as that of the working housewife and mother.

Eleanor Rathbone MP

A stable or a zoo is better. At least you have a donkey that carries a load and a cow that provides milk

Malalai Joya regarding Afghan legislation, 2007

As we say in Afghanistan, “the same donkey with a new saddle"

Malalai Joya regarding the Afghan Presidential elections, July 2009