Ninon de L'Enclos
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Anne "Ninon" de l'Enclose (10 November 1620 – 17 October 1705) was a French author, courtesan, and patron of the arts.
Quotes
[edit]- 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.
- Lettres de Ninon de Lenclos au marquis de Sévigné, vol. 1 (Paris, 1805) p. 43 [1]
- They are either to be pitied or condemned who are obliged to have recourse to religion for the conduct of their lives. 'Tis a sign they have either a narrow soul, or a corrupt heart.
- Tr. "A Lady" (1761)
- Those who need religion to help them to behave as they should, are much to be pitied. It is a sure sign of a limited intellect or of a corrupt heart.
- Tr. Anon. (1904)
- They are either to be pitied or condemned who are obliged to have recourse to religion for the conduct of their lives. 'Tis a sign they have either a narrow soul, or a corrupt heart.
- Lettres de Ninon de Lenclos au marquis de Sévigné, vol. 1 (Paris, 1805) p. 43 [1]
- Le beau billet qu'a La Châtre!
- Voltaire, Lettre à la Comtesse de Lutzelbourg, 14 September 1753
- What a fine position for La Châtre!
- Tr. Harbottle and Dalbiac (1901)
- What a fine position for La Châtre!
- Voltaire, Lettre à la Comtesse de Lutzelbourg, 14 September 1753
Attributed
[edit]- That which is striking and beautiful is not always good; but that which is good is always beautiful.
- In Lewis Copeland, Best Quotations for All Occasions (1965), p. 19
A Thousand Flashes of French Wit, Wisdom, and Wickedness (1902)
[edit]- Edited by J. de Finod, New York: D. Appleton and Co
- Beauty without grace is a hook without a bait.
- p. 16
- Love never dies of starvation, but often of indigestion.
- p. 24
- The desire to please is born in woman before the desire to love.
- p. 32
- Glances are the first billets-doux of love.
- p. 35
- When the intoxication of love has passed, we laugh at the perfections it had discovered.
- p. 58
- A woman should never accept a lover without the consent of her heart, nor a husband without the consent of her judgment.
- p. 121
- A woman is more influenced by what she divines than by what she is told.
- p. 124
- It is the opinion of men that makes the reputation of women.
- p. 127
- 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.
- p. 138
- A woman is never displeased if we please several other women, provided she is preferred: it is so many more triumphs for her.
- p. 148
- The resistance of a woman is not always a proof of her virtue, but more frequently of her experience.
- p. 173
- Cupid is a traitor who scratches, even when one only plays with him.
- p. 177
- Love without desire is a delusion: it does not exist in nature.
- p. 193
- Vows are the false money that pays for the sacrifices of love.
- p. 200
- Words really flattering are not those which we prepare, but those which escape us unthinkingly.
- p. 201
- Love is rather the god of sensation than of sensibility.
- p. 214
External links
[edit]
- Works by Ninon de l'Enclos at Project Gutenberg
- Thomas Benfield Harbottle; Philip Hugh Dalbiac, Dictionary of Quotations: French and Italian (London: Swan Sonnenschein & Co., Ltd.; New York: The Macmillan Co., 1901), p. 121