Marguerite de Navarre

"I have heard much of these languishing lovers, but I never yet saw one of them die for love."

"To me it seems much better to love a woman as a woman, than to make her one's idol, as many do. For my part, I am convinced that it is better to use than to abuse."

"No one ever perfectly loved God who did not perfectly love some of his creatures in this world."

"Un malheureux cherche l'autre."

"He who knows his own incapacity, knows something, after all."

"Man is wise ... when he recognises no greater enemy than himself."

"God always helps madmen, lovers, and drunkards."

"Mariage est un état de si longue durée, qu'il ne doit être commencé légèrement, ne sans l'opinion de nos meilleurs amis et parents."

"When one has one good day in the year, one is not wholly unfortunate."

"Blessed, unquestionably, is he who has it in his power to do evil, yet does it not."

"Though jealousy be produced by love as ashes are by fire, yet jealousy extinguishes love, as ashes smother the flame."

"I never knew a mocker who was not mocked, ... a deceiver who was not deceived, or a proud man who was not humbled."

"Ilz font semblant de n'aymer poinct les raisins quand ilz sont si haults, qu'ilz ne les peuvent cueillir."

"Some there are who are much more ashamed of confessing a sin than of committing it."

"The less one sees and knows men, the higher one esteems them; for experience teaches their real value."

"There are few husbands whom the wife can not win in the long run by patience and love, unless they are harder than the rocks which the soft water penetrates in time."

"The more hidden the venom, the more dangerous it is."

"We are always more disposed to laugh at nonsense than at genuine wit; because the nonsense is more agreeable to us, being more comformable to our own natures: fools love folly, and wise men wisdom."

"There is no greater fool than he who thinks himself wise; no one wiser than he who suspects he is a fool."

"There is in us more of the appearance of sense and of virtue than of the reality."

"The virtuous action, done for virtue's sake alone, is truly laudable."

"Men are so accustomed to lie, that one can not take too many precautions before trusting them — if they are to be trusted at all."

"Love works miracles every day: such as weakening the strong, and strengthening the weak; making fools of the wise, and wise men of fools; favoring the passions, destroying reason, and, in a word, turning everything topsy-turvy."

"He who knows his incapacity, knows something."

"The woman who does not choose to love should cut the matter short at once, by holding out no hopes to her suitor."

"Extreme concupiscence may be found under an extreme austerity."

"Hypocrites are wicked: they hide their defects with so much care, that their hearts are poisoned by them."

"We shall all be perfectly virtuous when there is no longer any flesh on our bones."

"I confess I should be glad if my pleasures were as pleasing to God as they are to me: in that case, I should often find matter for rejoicing."

"It is difficult to repent of what gives us pleasure."

"No one perfectly loves God who does not perfectly love some of his creatures."

"In love, as in war, a fortress that parleys is half taken."

"Pleasures are sins: we regret to offend God; but, then, pleasures please us."

"The true and the false speak the same language."

"A woman of honor should never suspect another of things she would not do herself."

"Since love teaches how to trick the tricksters, how much reason have we to fear it — we who are poor simple creatures!"

"Many weep for the sin, while they laugh over the pleasure."

"There are women so hard to please that it seems as if nothing less than an angel will suit them: hence it comes that they often meet with devils."

"God has put into the heart of man love and the boldness to sue, and into the heart of woman fear and the courage to refuse."

"Love is a disease that kills nobody, but one whose time has come."

"The principal themes of the [Heptaméron] are rape, seductions bordering on rape, incest and numerous infringements of the sex and marriage codes of aristocratic Europe."

"The first modern woman."