Ninon de L'Enclos Quotes

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.

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.

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

Novelty is the storehouse of pleasure.

Glances are the first billets-doux of love.

Love never dies of starvation, but often of indigestion.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Gossip, like ennui, is born of idleness.

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

Ennui, the parent of expensive and ruinous vices.

Inconstancy is the child of satiety.

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

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.

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

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

Soft moonlight and tender love harmonize together wonderfully.

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

One must choose between loving women and knowing them.

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

The secret known to two is no longer a secret.

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

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

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

Firmness is great; persistency is greater.

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

Gentleness! more powerful than Hercules.

The less heart, the more comfort.

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

Old age is a woman's hell.

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

Fair is not fair, but that which pleaseth.

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 passions do not die out; they burn out.

I hold those wise who know how to be happy.

After the age of eighty, all contemporaries are friends.

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

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

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

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