Quotes from Ninon de L'Enclos

It is strange that modesty is the rule for women when what they most value in men is boldness.

Old age is women's hell.

Old age is a woman's hell.

After the age of eighty, all contemporaries are friends.

The loss of friends is a tax on age!

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

What is death, after all? We leave only mortals behind us.

Feminine virtue is nothing but a convenient masculine invention.

Equality is the share of every one at their advent upon earth, and equality is also theirs when placed beneath it.

We should lay in a store of food, but never of pleasures; these should be gathered day by day.

Wit is a dangerous talent in friendship.

Men lose more conquests by their own awkwardness than by any virtue in the woman.

A man is given the choice between loving women and understanding them.

The joy of the mind is the measure of its strength.

It is strange that modesty is the rule for women when what they most value in men is boldness.

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

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

Old age is woman's hell.

The ideal has many names, and beauty is but one of them.

Beauty without grace is a hook without a bait.