Ninon de L'Enclos famous 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.
-- Ninon de L'Enclos

#Infidelity #Likes #Would Be

There are no perfect women in the world; only hypocrites exhibit no defects.
-- Ninon de L'Enclos

#Hypocrite #Perfect #World

The resistance of a woman is not always a proof of her virtue, but more frequently of her experience.
-- Ninon de L'Enclos

#Resistance #Virtue #Proof

A woman is more influenced by what she divines than by what she is told.
-- Ninon de L'Enclos

#Influence #Divine

It is not enough to be wise, one must be engaging.
-- Ninon de L'Enclos

#Wise #Enough #Being Wise

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

#Husband #Heart #Lovers

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

#Heart #Men #Mind

That which is striking and beautiful is not always good, but that which is good is always beautiful.
-- Ninon de L'Enclos

#Beauty #Beautiful #Carpe Diem

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

#Mistress #Deceit #Deceiving

It requires infinitely a greater genius to make love, than to make war.
-- Ninon de L'Enclos

#War #Making Love #Genius

A man is given the choice between loving women and understanding them
-- Ninon de L'Enclos

#Men #Choices #Understanding

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

#Life #Happiness #Passion

Glances are the first billets-doux of love.
-- Ninon de L'Enclos

#Firsts #Glances

Love without desire is a delusion: it does not exist in nature.
-- Ninon de L'Enclos

#Desire #Doe #Delusion

Love never dies of starvation, but often of indigestion.
-- Ninon de L'Enclos

#Love #Indigestion #Starvation

Novelty is the storehouse of pleasure.
-- Ninon de L'Enclos

#Novelty #Pleasure

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

#Mind #Relief #Body

When our desires are fulfilled, we never fail to realize the wealth of imagination and the paucity of reality.
-- Ninon de L'Enclos

#Reality #Imagination #Desire

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

#Infidelity #Lovers #Eternity

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

#People #Theatre #Acting

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

#Tombstone #Heart #Joy

The passions do not die out; they burn out.
-- Ninon de L'Enclos

#Passion #Burn Out #Dies

Men lose more conquests by their own awkwardness than by any virtue in the woman.
-- Ninon de L'Enclos

#Men #Awkward #Virtue

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

#Husband #Heart #Alaska

Gossip, like ennui, is born of idleness.
-- Ninon de L'Enclos

#Gossip #Born #Ennui

Firmness is great; persistency is greater.
-- Ninon de L'Enclos

#Firmness #Greater

It is strange that modesty is the rule for women when what they most value in men is boldness.
-- Ninon de L'Enclos

#Men #Modesty #Strange

Ennui, the parent of expensive and ruinous vices.
-- Ninon de L'Enclos

#Parent #Vices #Ennui

I hold those wise who know how to be happy.
-- Ninon de L'Enclos

#Wise #Wisdom #Joy

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

#Ideas #Making Love #Form

The joy of the mind is the measure of its strength.
-- Ninon de L'Enclos

#Joy #Mind

One must choose between loving women and knowing them.
-- Ninon de L'Enclos

#Knowing #Loving A Woman

Words really flattering are not those which we prepare but those which escape us unthinkingly.
-- Ninon de L'Enclos

#Flattering

Inconstancy is the child of satiety.
-- Ninon de L'Enclos

#Children #Satiety #Inconstancy

Indiscretion and wickedness, be it known, are first cousins.
-- Ninon de L'Enclos

#Cousin #Wickedness #Firsts

Soft moonlight and tender love harmonize together wonderfully.
-- Ninon de L'Enclos

#Romantic Love #Together #Moonlight

After the age of eighty, all contemporaries are friends.
-- Ninon de L'Enclos

#Age #Eighty

It takes a hundred times more skill to make love than to command an army.
-- Ninon de L'Enclos

#Army #Skills #Making Love

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

#Heart #Men #Attractiveness

What is death, after all? We leave only mortals behind us.
-- Ninon de L'Enclos

#Death #Behinds #Mortals

The more sins you confess, the more books you will sell.
-- Ninon de L'Enclos

#Book #Sin #Sells

The less heart, the more comfort.
-- Ninon de L'Enclos

#Heart #Comfort

Gentleness! more powerful than Hercules.
-- Ninon de L'Enclos

#Powerful #Gentleness

The secret known to two is no longer a secret.
-- Ninon de L'Enclos

#Two #Secret #Secrecy

Hatred is nearly always honest--rarely, if ever, assumed. So much cannot be said for love.
-- Ninon de L'Enclos

#Hatred #Honest #Said

There is always a moment in the pyramid of our lives when the apex is reached.
-- Ninon de L'Enclos

#Pyramids #Moments #Crisis

Friendship should be in the singular; it can be no more plural than love.
-- Ninon de L'Enclos

#Friendship #Should

There is a certain time of life, when we value a good stomach more than the mind.
-- Ninon de L'Enclos

#Mind #Stomach #Certain

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

#Wrinkles #Feet #Giving

Feminine virtue is nothing but a convenient masculine invention.
-- Ninon de L'Enclos

#Virtue #Feminine #Invention

The loss of friends is a tax on age!
-- Ninon de L'Enclos

#Friends #Loss #Age

We should lay in a store of food, but never of pleasures; these should be gathered day by day.
-- Ninon de L'Enclos

#Pleasure #Should #Stores

Memory is ever active, ever true. Alas, if it were only as easy to forget!
-- Ninon de L'Enclos

#Memories #Forget #Easy

Oaths are the counterfeit money with which we pay the sacrifice of love.
-- Ninon de L'Enclos

#Sacrifice #Pay #Oath

Wit is a dangerous talent in friendship.
-- Ninon de L'Enclos

#Talent #Dangerous #Wit

Old age is a woman's hell.
-- Ninon de L'Enclos

#Age #Hell #Old Age

Fair is not fair, but that which pleaseth.
-- Ninon de L'Enclos

#Attractiveness #Fairs #Not Fair

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

#Equality #Earth #Advent

Old age is women's hell.
-- Ninon de L'Enclos

#Age #Hell #Old Age