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Ninon de Lenclos
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“The loss of friends is a tax on age!”
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“Wit is a dangerous talent in friendship.”
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“Beauty without grace, is a hook without bait.”
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“There is a certain time of life, when we value a good stomach more than the mind ...”
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“It requires infinitely a greater genius to make love, than to make war.”
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“A woman is more easily persuaded that she is loved by what she guesses than by what she is told.”
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“Feminine virtue is nothing but a convenient masculine invention.”
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“The most flattering words are not those which we fashion, but those which escape us unthinkingly.”
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“Love never dies of starvation, but often of indigestion.”
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“Love without desire is a delusion: it does not exist in nature.”
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“Men lose more conquests by their own awkwardness than by any virtue in the woman.”
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“Shall I tell you what makes love so dangerous? 'Tis the too high idea we are apt to form of it.”
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“If God had to give a woman wrinkles, he might at least have put them on the soles of her feet.”
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“A woman should not take a lover without the consent of her heart, nor a husband without the consent of her reason.”
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“Never tell a loved one of an infidelity: you would be badly rewarded for your trouble. Although one dislikes being deceived, one likes even less to be undeceived.”
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“We should lay in a store of food, but never of pleasures; these should be gathered day by day.”
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“The joy of a spirit is the measure of its power.”
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“I have always sworn to my lovers to love them eternally, but for me eternity is a quarter of an hour.”
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“It takes one hundred times more intelligence to make love well than to command armies.”
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“The mind has great advantages over the body; however the body often furnishes little treats ... which offer the mind relief from sad thoughts.”
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“I hold those wise who know how to be happy.”
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“It is not enough to be wise, one must be engaging.”
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“One must choose between loving women and knowing them.”
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“After the age of eighty, all contemporaries are friends.”
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“The secret known to two is no longer a secret.”
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“In love-making, feigning lovers succeed much better than the really devoted.”
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“The resistance of a woman is not always a proof of her virtue, but more frequently of her experience.”
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“Every action we take, everything we do, is either a victory or defeat in the struggle to become what we want to be.”
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“Old age is a woman's hell.”
Ninon de Lenclos, French society figure, letterwriter
(1620 - 1705)
Real name: Anne de Lenclos, but also seen as Lanclos and L’Enclos.