The truth is, I often like women. I like their

The great modern mystic of letters, Virginia Woolf, once declared: “The truth is, I often like women. I like their unconventionality. I like their completeness. I like their anonymity.” These words, born not of idle admiration but of profound perception, remind us of the quiet strength and the uncelebrated depth of women. In them Woolf did not praise the polished masks society demanded, but the hidden essence—wild, whole, and unacknowledged—that dwells beneath. Her voice carries the wisdom of the ancients, for it points us toward what is overlooked yet eternal.

To call women unconventional is not merely to say they defy rules. It is to recognize that their power lies outside the rigid structures built by men. Society often tried to confine them, yet they lived with fluidity, weaving beauty, thought, and resilience in ways unmeasured by common standards. Woolf, who herself rejected the narrow cages of her time, admired in women this refusal to be contained. To live unconventionally is to live as water flows—shaping its own path, even through stone.

When she spoke of completeness, Woolf pointed to something even deeper. Women, in her eyes, carried within themselves a wholeness that men, so often fragmented by ambition or ego, could not attain. A woman could be fierce and tender, silent and eloquent, rooted in the daily tasks of life yet soaring in imagination. She was both the keeper of hearth and the dreamer of worlds. To Woolf, this completeness was not weakness, but harmony: the union of opposites in one soul.

And then she honored their anonymity. For in her time, the names of women were rarely inscribed in history’s scrolls. Their words went unsigned, their deeds unrecorded, their lives uncelebrated. Yet Woolf saw in this invisibility not only tragedy but a strange freedom. In anonymity, women could escape the heavy burden of fame and expectation; they could create and endure without always seeking recognition. Their anonymity was both the shadow imposed upon them and the hidden garden in which their quiet strength bloomed.

History itself bears witness to Woolf’s insight. Consider the countless women of the past whose names are lost, yet without whom civilizations could not stand. The unnamed midwives who brought kings and peasants alike into the world. The silent scribes and seamstresses who preserved culture through their craft. The mothers who, with completeness, sustained nations through war and famine. Or think of the Brontë sisters, who first wrote under male names to be heard at all—women cloaked in anonymity, yet carrying worlds within their pens. These forgotten lives embody Woolf’s vision: that true power often dwells where recognition does not.

The lesson for us, children of a new age, is to honor what Woolf revealed. Seek out the unconventional, do not fear it. Treasure completeness, in yourself and in others, as a sacred wholeness rather than a flaw. And respect the hidden strength that often lies in anonymity—not all greatness demands a crown of fame. Remember that what is quiet may still be eternal, and that truth often lives in the places overlooked by power.

Practical wisdom must follow. Do not silence the women around you, nor dismiss their ways as eccentric. Listen, learn, and honor their completeness. If you are a woman, embrace the fullness of your being without apology, for therein lies your strength. Do not chase recognition alone, but let your work and your life speak with or without applause. And if you find yourself anonymous, take courage—it is often in the hidden places that the deepest roots are grown.

Thus, Woolf’s words are no mere confession, but a revelation: that women, in their unconventionality, completeness, and anonymity, embody truths the world too often ignores. Let us learn from them, honor them, and become more whole ourselves by seeing what she saw. For in their quiet strength, there lies the secret architecture of life itself.