Christine de Pizan famous quotes

05-20-2025

The man or the woman in whom resides greater virtue is the higher; neither the loftiness nor the lowliness of a person lies in the body according to the sex, but in the perfection of conduct and virtues.
-- Christine de Pizan

#Sex #Lying #Men
Those who plead their cause in the absence of an opponent can invent to their heart's content, can pontificate without taking into account the opposite point of view and keep the best arguments for themselves, for aggressors are always quick to attack those who have no means of defence.
-- Christine de Pizan

#Heart #Mean #Views
Ah, child and youth, if you knew the bliss which resides in the taste of knowledge, and the evil and ugliness that lies in ignorance, how well you are advised to not complain of the pain and labor of learning.
-- Christine de Pizan

#Children #Pain #Lying
Once a man criticized my desire for knowledge by saying that it was not fitting for a woman to possess learning because there was so little of it. I replied that it was even less fitting for a man to possess ignorance because there was so much of it.
-- Christine de Pizan

#Ignorance #Men #Desire
Condemning all women in order to help some misguided men get over their foolish behaviour is tantamount to denouncing fire, which is a vital and beneficial element, just because some people are burnt by it, or to cursing water just because some people are drowned in it.
-- Christine de Pizan

#Men #Fire #Order
Yet if women are so flighty, fickle, changeable, susceptible, and inconstant (as some clerks would have us believe), why is it that their suitors have to resort to such trickery to have their way with them? And why don't women quickly succumb to them, without the need for all this skill and ingenuity in conquering them? For there is no need to go to war for a castle that is already captured.
-- Christine de Pizan

#War #Believe #Skills
If it were customary to send daughters to school like sons, and if they were then taught the natural sciences, they would learn as thoroughly and understand the subtleties of all the arts and sciences as well as sons. And by chance there happen to be such women, for, as I touched on before, just as women have more delicate bodies than men, weaker and less able to perform many tasks, so do they have minds that are freer and sharper whenever they apply themselves.
-- Christine de Pizan

#Daughter #Art #School
Men who have slandered the opposite sex have usually known women who were cleverer and more virtuous than they are.
-- Christine de Pizan

#Sex #Men #Opposites
I considered myself most unfortunate because God had made me inhabit a female body in this world
-- Christine de Pizan

#Female #World #Body
There Adam slept, and God formed the body of woman from one of his ribs, signifying that she should stand at his side as a companion and never lie at his feet like a slave, and also that he should love her as his own flesh.
-- Christine de Pizan

#Lying #Feet #Ribs
Women particularly should concern themselves with peace because men by nature are more foolhardy and headstrong, and their overwhelming desire to avenge themselves prevents them from foreseeing the resulting dangers and terrors of war. But woman by nature is more gentle and circumspect. Therefore, if she has sufficient will and wisdom she can provide the best possible means to pacify man.
-- Christine de Pizan

#War #Mean #Men
If it were customary to send little girls to school and teach them the same subjects as are taught to boys, they would learn just as fully and would understand the subtleties of all arts and sciences.
-- Christine de Pizan

#Girl #Art #School
The foolish rush to end their lives. Only the steadfast soul survives.
-- Christine de Pizan

#Soul #Foolish #Ends
If you would reflect well and wisely, you would realize that those events you regard as personal misfortunes have served a useful purpose even in this worldly life, and indeed have worked for your betterment.
-- Christine de Pizan

#Events #Purpose #Realizing
How many women are there ... who because of their husbands' harshness spend their weary lives in the bond of marriage in greater suffering than if they were slaves among the Saracens?
-- Christine de Pizan

#Husband #Suffering #Slave
Not all men (and especially the wisest) share the opinion that it is bad for women to be educated. But it is very true that many foolish men have claimed this because it displeased them that women knew more than they did.
-- Christine de Pizan

#Men #Opinion #Foolish
Just as women's bodies are softer than men's, so their understanding is sharper.
-- Christine de Pizan

#Men #Understanding #Body
Does a rake deserve to possess anything of worth, since he chases everything in skirts and then imagines he can successfully hide his shame by slandering [women in general]?
-- Christine de Pizan

#Doe #Rakes #Skirts
Though sad at heart, to sing joyfully.
-- Christine de Pizan

#Heart #Sadness

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