Ninon de L'Enclos quotes
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“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.”
-- Ninon de L'Enclos -
“There are no perfect women in the world; only hypocrites exhibit no defects.”
-- Ninon de L'Enclos -
“The resistance of a woman is not always a proof of her virtue, but more frequently of her experience.”
-- Ninon de L'Enclos -
“A woman is more influenced by what she divines than by what she is told.”
-- Ninon de L'Enclos -
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“It is not enough to be wise, one must be engaging.”
-- Ninon de L'Enclos -
“A woman should not take a lover without the consent of her heart, nor a husband without the consent of her reason.”
-- Ninon de L'Enclos -
“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.”
-- Ninon de L'Enclos -
“That which is striking and beautiful is not always good, but that which is good is always beautiful.”
-- Ninon de L'Enclos -
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“A cunning woman is her own mistress because she confides in no one. She who deceives others anticipates deceit, and guards herself.”
-- Ninon de L'Enclos -
“It requires infinitely a greater genius to make love, than to make war.”
-- Ninon de L'Enclos -
“A man is given the choice between loving women and understanding them”
-- Ninon de L'Enclos -
“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.”
-- Ninon de L'Enclos -
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“Glances are the first billets-doux of love.”
-- Ninon de L'Enclos -
“Love without desire is a delusion: it does not exist in nature.”
-- Ninon de L'Enclos -
“Love never dies of starvation, but often of indigestion.”
-- Ninon de L'Enclos -
“Novelty is the storehouse of pleasure.”
-- Ninon de L'Enclos -
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“The mind has great advantages over the body; however the body often furnishes little treats ... which offer the mind relief from sad thoughts.”
-- Ninon de L'Enclos -
“When our desires are fulfilled, we never fail to realize the wealth of imagination and the paucity of reality.”
-- Ninon de L'Enclos -
“I have always sworn to my lovers to love them eternally, but for me eternity is a quarter of an hour.”
-- Ninon de L'Enclos -
“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.”
-- Ninon de L'Enclos -
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“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.”
-- Ninon de L'Enclos -
“The passions do not die out; they burn out.”
-- Ninon de L'Enclos -
“Men lose more conquests by their own awkwardness than by any virtue in the woman.”
-- Ninon de L'Enclos -
“A sensible woman should be guided by her head when taking a husband, and by her heart when taking a lover.”
-- Ninon de L'Enclos -
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“Gossip, like ennui, is born of idleness.”
-- Ninon de L'Enclos -
“Firmness is great; persistency is greater.”
-- Ninon de L'Enclos -
“It is strange that modesty is the rule for women when what they most value in men is boldness.”
-- Ninon de L'Enclos -
“Ennui, the parent of expensive and ruinous vices.”
-- Ninon de L'Enclos -
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“I hold those wise who know how to be happy.”
-- Ninon de L'Enclos -
“Shall I tell you what makes love so dangerous? 'Tis the too high idea we are apt to form of it.”
-- Ninon de L'Enclos -
“The joy of the mind is the measure of its strength.”
-- Ninon de L'Enclos -
“One must choose between loving women and knowing them.”
-- Ninon de L'Enclos -
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“Words really flattering are not those which we prepare but those which escape us unthinkingly.”
-- Ninon de L'Enclos -
“Indiscretion and wickedness, be it known, are first cousins.”
-- Ninon de L'Enclos -
“Soft moonlight and tender love harmonize together wonderfully.”
-- Ninon de L'Enclos -
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“After the age of eighty, all contemporaries are friends.”
-- Ninon de L'Enclos -
“It takes a hundred times more skill to make love than to command an army.”
-- Ninon de L'Enclos -
“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.”
-- Ninon de L'Enclos -
“What is death, after all? We leave only mortals behind us.”
-- Ninon de L'Enclos -
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“The more sins you confess, the more books you will sell.”
-- Ninon de L'Enclos -
“Gentleness! more powerful than Hercules.”
-- Ninon de L'Enclos -
“The secret known to two is no longer a secret.”
-- Ninon de L'Enclos -
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“Hatred is nearly always honest--rarely, if ever, assumed. So much cannot be said for love.”
-- Ninon de L'Enclos -
“There is always a moment in the pyramid of our lives when the apex is reached.”
-- Ninon de L'Enclos -
“Friendship should be in the singular; it can be no more plural than love.”
-- Ninon de L'Enclos -
“There is a certain time of life, when we value a good stomach more than the mind.”
-- Ninon de L'Enclos -
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“If God had to give a woman wrinkles, He might at least have put them on the soles of her feet.”
-- Ninon de L'Enclos -
“Feminine virtue is nothing but a convenient masculine invention.”
-- Ninon de L'Enclos -
“We should lay in a store of food, but never of pleasures; these should be gathered day by day.”
-- Ninon de L'Enclos -
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“Memory is ever active, ever true. Alas, if it were only as easy to forget!”
-- Ninon de L'Enclos -
“Oaths are the counterfeit money with which we pay the sacrifice of love.”
-- Ninon de L'Enclos -
“Wit is a dangerous talent in friendship.”
-- Ninon de L'Enclos -
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“Fair is not fair, but that which pleaseth.”
-- Ninon de L'Enclos -
“Equality is the share of every one at their advent upon earth, and equality is also theirs when placed beneath it.”
-- Ninon de L'Enclos
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