Ninon de L'Enclos

"Que l'on était bien à plaindre quand on avait besoin du secours de la religion pour se conduire , et que c'était la marque d'un esprit bien borné, ou d'un cœur bien corrompu."

"Le beau billet qu'a La Châtre!"

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

"Beauty without grace is a hook without a bait."

"Love never dies of starvation, but often of indigestion."

"The desire to please is born in woman before the desire to love."

"Glances are the first billets-doux of love."

"When the intoxication of love has passed, we laugh at the perfections it had discovered."

"A woman should never accept a lover without the consent of her heart, nor a husband without the consent of her judgment."

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

"It is the opinion of men that makes the reputation of women."

"When women have passed thirty, the first thing they forget is their age; when they have attained forty, they have entirely lost the remembrance of it."

"A woman is never displeased if we please several other women, provided she is preferred: it is so many more triumphs for her."

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

"Cupid is a traitor who scratches, even when one only plays with him."

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

"Vows are the false money that pays for the sacrifices of love."

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

"Love is rather the god of sensation than of sensibility."