Aesthetic:
The design fits the content because they are quotes by very strong female leaders and the font weight is bolded. The boldness of the font echoes the power of the quotes. Furthermore, the contrast between font weight helps distinguish who is talking and the quote itself. It is a very different but smart approach (most quotes bold the speaker, but in this case, I think this decision to bold the quote itself is very effective).
Yes. The image choices matches and supports the text. Closeups of the speaker help indicate who is talking.
The aesthetic is consistent because the font choice and images follow a similar language. I would consider perhaps changing all of them to black and white- the single black and white image (I understand is indicative of the time period it presides in) feels a bit out of place in the set. Also, is it possible to have all the fonts the same font size?
Definitely legible, the bold font on a mostly clean background helps a lot.
Structure:
The priority of these are to indicate who the speaker is and what they are saying.
Design elements help one another. The bolded font help distinguish the letterforms nicely, but it doesn’t take away from the very powerful close-up images.
Background is definitely the image receding, while the foreground are the bolded text that sits in between the negative spaces.
The words are snapped into a space that would not obstruct the portraits or any important image content, which is a very effective approach.
I do not think there are any blurs, but the Beyonce photo does seem purposefully fade to make the overlap of text feel more natural. Although would consider Beyonce perhaps- only one that has overlapped text on image.
Speaker of quote could be smaller font in desktop to create hierarchy.
Technical points:
Contrast is fine, the image seems managed (not compressed or distorted), shouldn't be to difficult to build.