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.

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

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.

Novelty is the storehouse of pleasure.

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

Glances are the first billets-doux of love.

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

Love never dies of starvation, but often of indigestion.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Gossip, like ennui, is born of idleness.

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.

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.

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

Inconstancy is the child of satiety.

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.

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

Soft moonlight and tender love harmonize together wonderfully.

One must choose between loving women and knowing them.

The secret known to two is no longer a secret.

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

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

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

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

Old age is a woman's hell.

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

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

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

The less heart, the more comfort.

Firmness is great; persistency is greater.

Gentleness! more powerful than Hercules.

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

I hold those wise who know how to be happy.

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.

After the age of eighty, all contemporaries are friends.

The passions do not die out; they burn out.

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

Fair is not fair, but that which pleaseth.

Feminine virtue is nothing but a convenient masculine invention.

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