1.
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
2.
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
3.
That which is striking and beautiful is not always good, but that which is good is always beautiful.
Ninon de L'Enclos
4.
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
5.
Novelty is the storehouse of pleasure.
Ninon de L'Enclos
6.
Glances are the first billets-doux of love.
Ninon de L'Enclos
7.
Love never dies of starvation, but often of indigestion.
Ninon de L'Enclos
8.
The resistance of a woman is not always a proof of her virtue, but more frequently of her experience.
Ninon de L'Enclos
9.
It is not enough to be wise, one must be engaging.
Ninon de L'Enclos
10.
There are no perfect women in the world; only hypocrites exhibit no defects.
Ninon de L'Enclos
11.
Men lose more conquests by their own awkwardness than by any virtue in the woman.
Ninon de L'Enclos
12.
Love without desire is a delusion: it does not exist in nature.
Ninon de L'Enclos
13.
A woman is more influenced by what she divines than by what she is told.
Ninon de L'Enclos
14.
A man is given the choice between loving women and understanding them
Ninon de L'Enclos
15.
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
16.
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
17.
It requires infinitely a greater genius to make love, than to make war.
Ninon de L'Enclos
18.
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
19.
Gossip, like ennui, is born of idleness.
Ninon de L'Enclos
20.
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
21.
Ennui, the parent of expensive and ruinous vices.
Ninon de L'Enclos
22.
Inconstancy is the child of satiety.
Ninon de L'Enclos
23.
It takes a hundred times more skill to make love than to command an army.
Ninon de L'Enclos
24.
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
25.
What is death, after all? We leave only mortals behind us.
Ninon de L'Enclos
26.
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
27.
Soft moonlight and tender love harmonize together wonderfully.
Ninon de L'Enclos
28.
There is always a moment in the pyramid of our lives when the apex is reached.
Ninon de L'Enclos
29.
One must choose between loving women and knowing them.
Ninon de L'Enclos
30.
Indiscretion and wickedness, be it known, are first cousins.
Ninon de L'Enclos
31.
The secret known to two is no longer a secret.
Ninon de L'Enclos
32.
When our desires are fulfilled, we never fail to realize the wealth of imagination and the paucity of reality.
Ninon de L'Enclos
33.
There is a certain time of life, when we value a good stomach more than the mind.
Ninon de L'Enclos
34.
Words really flattering are not those which we prepare but those which escape us unthinkingly.
Ninon de L'Enclos
35.
Firmness is great; persistency is greater.
Ninon de L'Enclos
36.
The joy of the mind is the measure of its strength.
Ninon de L'Enclos
37.
Gentleness! more powerful than Hercules.
Ninon de L'Enclos
38.
The less heart, the more comfort.
Ninon de L'Enclos
39.
Friendship should be in the singular; it can be no more plural than love.
Ninon de L'Enclos
40.
Old age is a woman's hell.
Ninon de L'Enclos
41.
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
42.
Fair is not fair, but that which pleaseth.
Ninon de L'Enclos
43.
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
44.
The passions do not die out; they burn out.
Ninon de L'Enclos
45.
I hold those wise who know how to be happy.
Ninon de L'Enclos
46.
After the age of eighty, all contemporaries are friends.
Ninon de L'Enclos
47.
The more sins you confess, the more books you will sell.
Ninon de L'Enclos
48.
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
49.
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
50.
It is strange that modesty is the rule for women when what they most value in men is boldness.
Ninon de L'Enclos