Ninon de l'enclos quotes

A woman should not take a lover without the consent of her heart, nor a husband without the consent of her reason.

Love without desire is a delusion: it does not exist in nature.

A man is given the choice between loving women and understanding them

Words really flattering are not those which we prepare but those which escape us unthinkingly.

Indiscretion and wickedness, be it known, are first cousins.

If a man needs a religion to conduct himself properly in this world, it is a sign that he has either a limited mind or a corrupt heart.

That which is striking and beautiful is not always good, but that which is good is always beautiful.

Today a new sun rises for me; everything lives, everything is animated, everything seems to speak to me of my passion, everything invites me to cherish it.

I hold those wise who know how to be happy.

Glances are the first billets-doux of love.

Friendship should be in the singular; it can be no more plural than love.

Hatred is nearly always honest--rarely, if ever, assumed. So much cannot be said for love.

I have always sworn to my lovers to love them eternally, but for me eternity is a quarter of an hour.

Inconstancy is the child of satiety.

A cunning woman is her own mistress because she confides in no one. She who deceives others anticipates deceit, and guards herself.

After the age of eighty, all contemporaries are friends.

The joy of the mind is the measure of its strength.

There are other things besides beauty with which to captivate the hearts of men. The Italians have a saying: "Fair is not fair, but that which pleaseth.

The resistance of a woman is not always a proof of her virtue, but more frequently of her experience.

The loss of friends is a tax on age!

If God had to give a woman wrinkles, He might at least have put them on the soles of her feet.

Shall I tell you what makes love so dangerous? 'Tis the too high idea we are apt to form of it.

Wit is a dangerous talent in friendship.

Never tell a loved one of an infidelity: you would be badly rewarded for your troubles. Although one dislikes being deceived, one likes even less to be undeceived.

Actors ought to be larger than life. You come across quite enough ordinary, nondescript people in daily life and I don't see why you should be subjected to them on the stage too.

There is a certain time of life, when we value a good stomach more than the mind.

A sensible woman should be guided by her head when taking a husband, and by her heart when taking a lover.

It is not enough to be wise, one must be engaging.

What is death, after all? We leave only mortals behind us.

The mind has great advantages over the body; however the body often furnishes little treats ... which offer the mind relief from sad thoughts.

Ennui, the parent of expensive and ruinous vices.

When our desires are fulfilled, we never fail to realize the wealth of imagination and the paucity of reality.

Gossip, like ennui, is born of idleness.

Gentleness! more powerful than Hercules.

Soft moonlight and tender love harmonize together wonderfully.

A woman is more influenced by what she divines than by what she is told.

There is always a moment in the pyramid of our lives when the apex is reached.

Men lose more conquests by their own awkwardness than by any virtue in the woman.

Fair is not fair, but that which pleaseth.

Feminine virtue is nothing but a convenient masculine invention.

We should lay in a store of food, but never of pleasures; these should be gathered day by day.

The secret known to two is no longer a secret.

Who has not raised a tombstone, here and there, over buried hopes and dead joys, on the road of life? Like the scars of the heart, they are not to be obliterated.

Old age is a woman's hell.

The more sins you confess, the more books you will sell.

Oaths are the counterfeit money with which we pay the sacrifice of love.

It takes a hundred times more skill to make love than to command an army.

Firmness is great; persistency is greater.

There are no perfect women in the world; only hypocrites exhibit no defects.

The less heart, the more comfort.

The passions do not die out; they burn out.

Love never dies of starvation, but often of indigestion.

Old age is women's hell.

Novelty is the storehouse of pleasure.

One must choose between loving women and knowing them.

It requires infinitely a greater genius to make love, than to make war.

Equality is the share of every one at their advent upon earth, and equality is also theirs when placed beneath it.

Memory is ever active, ever true. Alas, if it were only as easy to forget!

It is strange that modesty is the rule for women when what they most value in men is boldness.