women-from-france

"Stephen also, count of Blois, was despised and shamed by almost everyone, because in 1098 he had disgracefully fled from the siege of Antioch and deserted his glorious comrades who were suffering in Christ's martyrdom. He was so often reproached, by so many people, that he was forced to rejoin Christ's army, as much from embarrassment as from fear. His wife Adela also frequently urged him to go, and between caresses of her loving husband she would say: "Far be it from you, my lord, to deign to suffer the reproaches of such men for long. Recapture the famous vigour of your youth, and take up the weapons of the glorious army for the salvation of many thousands, so that there may be a great rejoicing arising from Christians all over the world, and terror for the heathen, and the public overthrow of their wicked law.""

"Les gens les mieux élevés sont ceux qui ont le plus vite besoin de solitude, parce que ce sont ceux qui se gênent davantage pour la présence d'autrui."

"Qu'est-ce qu'une femme? Celle qui fait les heureux et qui console les malheureux."

"Ce sont les fortes raisons qui déterminent nos résolutions; ce sont les petites raisons qui nous arrêtent au moment de les exécuter. De loin tout le monde a envie de faire un beau voyage; et, à l'heure du départ, plus d'un est arrêté par la crainte de la cuisine ou des lits d'auberge."

"La beauté attire, l'esprit amuse, le cœur retient."

"Il faut être très religieux pour changer de religion."

"La calomnie est comme la fausse monnaie: bien des gens qui ne voudraient pas l'avoir émise, la font circuler sans scrupule."

"Les gens légers prennent légèrement les choses sérieuses et sérieusement les choses légères."

"C'est toujours une naïveté que de combattre une résolution qu'un homme a prise sérieusement. Il y a des chances pour que chacun voie plus clair que les autres dans sa propre affaire, parce qu'il y a pensé plus longtemps."

"L'intelligence des femmes est inférieure à celle des hommes; toute femme qui tente de le nier travaille à le prouver."

"C'est un grand orgueil que d'oser être tout simplement soi."

"Comment osons-nous juger les autres quand nous sentons si bien tout ce qui leur manque pour nous juger?"

"Pour faire un bon ennemi, prenez un ami: il sait où frapper."

"Les années qu'une femme retranche de son âge ne sont pas perdues: elles sont ajoutées à l'âge des autres femmes."

"OK, meet me tomorrow morning at eight. Sharp. Otherwise I leave."

"I may not have had any biological babies but I have many children—all those I have helped to survive and grow-up and still welcome me to their villages with glad cries of Mama Daktari. In Swahili, ‘Mama’ means ‘Madam’ or better still 'Mother', and in my heart this is what it means to me."

"It was not exactly as you say. In practice, the 12 of us never lived at home at the same time, because the family grew up with 22 years between the eldest to the youngest (the last one was born in 1968). My elder sisters left early, and I am the tenth. In my first memories, there were only five or six siblings at home. The worst was not to have a room of my own. The house was big, but the rooms were not many, however large."

"In this respect I recall with much sympathy the writer Virginia Woolf who wrote about this need for private space (A Room of One’s Own) as a condition for liberty and creativity. I had a room of my own only by the end of high school, of which I have excellent memories."

"I would say [it has evolved] a feeling of freedom and simplicity, sometimes almost hiding elegant details that you notice later in time…I often say that it has to be omnipresent in its disappearance."

"Basically, I always try to reconcile poor and rich materials. It is an anti-ghetto and nonconformist idea about the arrangement of space and light."

"On aime Plus âprement que l'on ne hait!"

"Prenez-vous, quittez-vous, cherchez-vous tour à tour, Il n’est rien de réel que le rêve et l’amour."

"Astres qui regardez les mondes où nous sommes, Pure armée au repos dans la hauteur des cieux, Campement éternel, léger, silencieux, Que pensez-vous de voir s'anéantir les hommes?"

"Mother de Gramont's remarkable intelligence and influence were of great value in the important work entrusted to her, and she established the school in the Rue de Varenne so firmly in its position that the only anxiety of the foundress of the society concerning it was the success, almost too brilliant for her love of hiddenness and simplicity, which attended the work."

"A woman's life can be divided thus: the age when she dances but does not dare to waltz — it is the spring; the age when she dances and dares to waltz — it is summer; the age when she dances but prefers to waltz — it is autumn; finally, when she dances no longer — it is winter, that rigorous winter of life."

"We are only vulnerable and ridiculous through our pretensions."

"Self-interest, that leprosy of the age, attacks us from infancy, and we are startled to observe little heads calculate before knowing how to reflect."

"O, how true it is there can be no tête-à-tête where vanity reigns!"

"It has been said that society is for the happy, the rich; we should rather say the happy have no need of it."

"It is not easy to be a widow: one must reassume all the modesty of girlhood, without being allowed to even feign its ignorance."

"Love with men is not a sentiment, but an idea."

"Our instinct inspires us, — warns us, our intelligence scents out what our reason docs not discover, for instinct is the nose of the mind."

"Treasures are not for youth; at twenty years one does not know how to be rich, or to be loved."

"Good taste is the modestly of the mind; that is why it cannot be either imitated or acquired."

"Quand on veut dessécher un marais, on ne fait pas en voter les grenouilles!"

"Hope, alas! is our waking dream."

"Infidelity, like death, admits of no degrees."

"Car, vois-tu, chaque jour je t'aime davantage, Aujourd'hui plus qu'hier et bien moins que demain."

"There is only one proper way to wear a beautiful dress: to forget you are wearing it."

"For ages happiness has been represented as a huge precious stone, impossible to find, which people seek for hopelessly. It is not so — happiness is a mosaic, composed of a thousand little stones, which, separately and of themselves, have little value, but which, united with art form a graceful design. Set the mosaic carefully, and you have a beautiful ornament; learn to understand intelligently the passing enjoyments which chance, which your character gives you, or which Heaven sends you, and you have an agreeable existence. Why always look to the horizon when there are such fine roses in the garden you live in?"

"I do not believe in virtue, but I do believe in innocence. They are very different. Innocence is ignorance."

"Les esprits dont la mission est de détruire les préjugés, sont précisément ceux qui ont la plus de préjugés, et qui les professent avec le plus d'aveuglement."

"Aimer qui vous aime, admirer qui vous admire, en un mot, être l'idole de son idole! ... C'est trop, c'est dépasser les joies humaines, c'est déruber le feu du ciel!"

"Et quand divinement ta voix m’enchaine Je vois s’évanouir tout ma peine Et tout ton être chante et vive en moi."

"La femme est un grand enfant qu'on amuse avec des joujoux, qu'on endort avec des louanges, et qu'on séduit avec des promesses."

"Tel est le sort des femmes galantes: elles se donnent à Dieu, quand le diable n'en veut plus."

"In marriage, woman is a serf. In public instruction, she is sacrificed. In labor, she is made inferior. Civilly, she is a minor. Politically, she has no existence. She is the equal of man only when punishment and the payment of taxes are in question. I claim the rights of woman, because it is time to make the nineteenth century ashamed of its culpable denial of justice to half the human species; Because the state of inferiority in which we are held corrupts morals, dissolves society, deteriorates and enfeebles the race; Because the progress of enlightenment, in which woman participates, has transformed her in social power, and because this new power produces evil in default of the good which it is not permitted to do; Because the time for according reforms has come, since women are protesting against the order which oppresses them; some by disdain of laws and prejudices; others by taking possession of contested positions, and by organizing themselves into societies to claim their share of human rights, as is done in America; Lastly, because it seems to me useful to reply, no longer with sentimentality, but with vigor, to those men who, terrified by the emancipating movement, call to their aid false science to prove that woman is outside the pale of right; and carry indecorum and the opposite of courage, even to insult, even to the most revolting outrages."

"When you kill these Flemish boars, do not spare the sows; them I would have spitted."

"It was said that the saints are loyal and that he is a saint dedicated to me About his brother."

"The marking features of her personality were breadth of view and rapid intuition that appeared unerring as an instinct, directness of intention and strength of purpose which lay concealed under a timid exterior, but astonished by their force when circumstances called for prompt decision and action - and a characteristic grace of humility which seemed to be her distinguishing supernatural gift."