Top 30 Nancy Astor Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “I am sure that you will never end war with wars.”

— Nancy Astor

2. “We women talk too much, but even then we don’t tell half what we know.”

— Nancy Astor

3. “I used to dread getting older because I thought I would not be able to do all the things I wanted to do, but now that I am older I find that I don’t want to do them.”

— Nancy Astor

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

— Nancy Astor

5. “Dreams are great. When they disappear you may still be there, but you will have ceased to live.”

— Nancy Astor

6. “The most practical thing in the world is common sense and common humanity.”

— Nancy Astor

7. “I refuse to admit that I am more than 52, even if that makes my children illegitimate.”

— Nancy Astor

8. “From the American newspapers you’d think America was populated solely by naked women and cinema stars.”

— Nancy Astor

9. “Drink promises you everything, but gives nothing...”

— Nancy Astor

10. “Drinking makes a person lose his inhibitions and give exhibitions.”

— Nancy Astor

11. “People who talk about peace are very often the most quarrelsome.”

— Nancy Astor

12. “The penalty for success is to be bored by the people who used to snub you.”

— Nancy Astor

13. “When she woke briefly during her last illness and found all her family around her bedside: “Am I dying or is this my birthday?””

— Nancy Astor

14. “One reason I don’t drink is that I want to know when I am having a good time.”

— Nancy Astor

15. “The only thing I like about rich people is their money.”

— Nancy Astor

16. “I married beneath me. All women do.”

— Nancy Astor

17. “Women are young at politics, but they are old at suffering; soon they will learn that through politics they can prevent some kinds of suffering.”

— Nancy Astor

18. “It isn’t the common man at all who is important: it’s the uncommon man.”

— Nancy Astor

19. “Years ago, I thought old age would be dreadful, because I should not be able to do things I would want to do. Now I find there is nothing I want to do after all.”

— Nancy Astor

20. “It is hopeless trying to go forward when you are looking backward.”

— Nancy Astor

21. “Basic beauty lies in the way a woman walks; it is health and an attitude to life.”

— Nancy Astor

22. “My vigour, vitality, and cheek repel me. I am the kind of woman I would run from.”

— Nancy Astor

23. “I would rather commit adultery than drink a glass of beer.”

— Nancy Astor

24. “Sir, if you were my husband, I would poison your drink.”

— Nancy Astor

25. “Grass is growing on the Front Bench.”

— Nancy Astor

26. “Anyone’s blood can become blue for a lump sum down.”

— Nancy Astor

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

— Nancy Astor

28. “In passing, also, I would like to say that the first time Adam had a chance he laid the blame on a woman.”

— Nancy Astor

Featured in: Firsts Quotes

29. “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

30. “I can conceive of nothing worse than a man-governed world – except a woman-governed world.”

— Nancy Astor

31. “A fool without fear is sometimes wiser than an angel with fear.”

— Nancy Astor

32. “What would we say if men changed the length of their trousers every year?”

— Nancy Astor

33. “There is no such thing as a strictly woman’s problem. Any question affecting the welfare of society is a woman’s problem.”

— Nancy Astor

34. “Nobody wants me as a Cabinet Minister and they are perfectly right. I am an agitator, not an administrator.”

— Nancy Astor