Part 3

* * * * *

A marriageable girl is a kind of merchandise that can be negotiated at wholesale only on condition that no one takes a part at retail.

_Karr._

* * * * *

Woman is a flower that exhales her perfume only in the shade.

_De Lamennais._

* * * * *

An honest woman is the one we fear to compromise.

_Balzac._

* * * * *

A woman, the more curious she is about her face, is commonly the more careless about her home.

_Ben Jonson._

* * * * *

Heaven has refused genius to woman, in order to concentrate all the fire in her heart.

_Rivarol._

* * * * *

The two pleasantest days of a woman are her marriage day and the day of her funeral.

_Hipponax._

* * * * *

A woman who writes commits two sins; she increases the number of books, and decreases the number of women.

_Karr._

* * * * *

A lady’s wish—he said, with a certain gallantry of manner—makes slaves of us all.

_Holmes._

* * * * *

In nineteen cases out of twenty, for a woman to play her heart in the game of love is to play at cards with a sharper, and gold coin against counterfeit pieces.

_Bourget._

* * * * *

Women are at ease in perfidy, as are serpents in bushes.

_Feuillet._

* * * * *

Women see without looking; their husbands often look without seeing.

_Desnoyers._

* * * * *

Most women who ride well on horseback have little tenderness. Like the Amazons, they lack a breast.

_Anonymous._

* * * * *

Earth has nothing more tender than a woman’s heart when it is the abode of pity.

_Luther._

* * * * *

In wishing to control her empire, woman destroys it.

_Canabis._

* * * * *

Wherever women are honoured, the gods are satisfied.

_Laws of Manu._

* * * * *

To a woman, the romances she makes are more amusing than those she reads.

_Gautier._

* * * * *

Women give themselves to God when the devil wants nothing more with them.

_Sophie Arnould._

* * * * *

Sensualism intrudes into the education of young women, and withers the hope and affection of human nature.

_Emerson._

* * * * *

All the reasoning of man is not worth one sentiment of woman.

_Voltaire._

* * * * *

When an old crone frolics, she flirts with death.

_Syrus._

* * * * *

There never was in any age such a wonder to be found as a dumb woman.

_Plautus._

* * * * *

Wives are young men’s mistresses, companions for middle age, and old men’s nurses.

_Bacon._

* * * * *

Tenderness has no deeper source than the heart of a woman, devotion no purer shrine, sacrifice no more saint-like abnegation.

_Saint-Foix._

* * * * *

It is difficult for a woman to keep a secret; and I know more than one man who is a woman.

_Lafontaine._

* * * * *

All the evil that women have done to us comes from us, and all the good they have done to us comes from them.

_Aimi Martin._

* * * * *

Have a useful and good wife in the house, or don’t marry at all.

_Euripides._

* * * * *

There are beautiful flowers that are scentless, and beautiful women that are unlovable.

_Houelle._

* * * * *

None can do a woman worse despite than to call her old.

_Ariosto._

* * * * *

He who flatters women most pleases them best, and they are most in love with him whom they think is most in love with them.

_Chesterfield._

* * * * *

Suitors of a wealthy girl seldom seek for proof of her past virtue.

_Anonymous._

* * * * *

Imperious Venus is less potent than caressing Venus.

_Anonymous._

* * * * *

The clown knows very well that the women are not in love with him, but with Hamlet, the fellow in the black cloak and plumed hat.

_Holmes._

* * * * *

Do you not know I am a woman? When I think, I must speak.

_Shakespeare._

* * * * *

Women, asses, and nuts require strong hands.

_Italian Proverb._

* * * * *

Woman sends forth her sympathies on adventure. She embarks her whole soul in the traffic of affection; and if shipwrecked, her case is hopeless.

_Washington Irving._ * * * * *

A woman is sometimes fugitive, irrational, indeterminable, illogical and contradictory. A great deal of forbearance ought to be shown her.

_Amiel._

* * * * *

What a strange illusion it is to suppose that beauty is goodness! A beautiful woman utters absurdities: we listen, and we hear not the absurdities but wise thoughts.

_Tolstoi._

* * * * *

A woman cannot guarantee her heart, even though her husband be the greatest and most perfect of men.

_George Sand._

* * * * *

It is born in maidens that they should wish to please everything that has eyes.

_Gleim._

* * * * *

The woman who throws herself at a man’s head will soon find her place at his feet.

_Desnoyers._

* * * * *

Women and wine, game and deceit, make the wealth small and the wants great.

_Proverb._ * * * * *

I confess I like the quality ladies better than the common kind even of literary ones.

_Holmes._

* * * * *

Women sometimes deceive the lover—never the friend.

_Mercier._

* * * * *

You see in no place of conversation the perfection of speech so much as in accomplished women.

_Steele._

* * * * *

A fan is indispensable to a woman who can no longer blush.

_Anonymous._

* * * * *

When a wrong idea possesses a woman, much bitterness flows from her tongue.

_Euripides._

* * * * *

Marriage communicates to women the vices of men, but never their virtues.

_Fourier._ * * * * *

In love, the confidant of a woman’s sorrow often becomes the consoler of it.

_Anonymous._

* * * * *

A royal court without women is like a year without spring, a spring without flowers.

_Francis I. of France._

* * * * *

A woman full of faith in the one she loves is but a novelist’s fancy.

_Balzac._

* * * * *

O Pygmalion, who can wonder (no artist surely) that thou didst fall in love with the work of thine own hands.

_Leigh Hunt._

* * * * *

The mistakes of a woman result almost always from her faith in the good and her confidence in the truth.

_Balzac._

* * * * *

Let an action be never so trivial in itself, women always make it appear of the most importance.

_Pope._ * * * * *

There are only two beautiful things in the world—women and roses; and only two sweet things—women and melons.

_Malherbe._

* * * * *

Before promising a woman to love only her, one should have seen them all, or should see only her.

_Dupuy._

* * * * *

Many young girls have a strange audacity blended with their instinctive delicacy.

_Holmes._

* * * * *

Friendship that begins between a man and a woman will soon change its name.

_Anonymous._

* * * * *

The happiest women, like the happiest nations, have no history.

_George Eliot._

* * * * *

Women are formed by nature to feel some consolation in present troubles, by having them always in their mouth and on their tongue.

_Euripides._ * * * * *

Women give entirely to their affections, set their whole fortunes on the die, lose themselves eagerly in the glory of their husbands and children.

_Emerson._

* * * * *

We ask four things for a woman—that virtue dwell in her heart, modesty in her forehead, sweetness in her mouth, and labour in her hands.

_Chinese Proverb._

* * * * *

In all ill-matched marriages, the fault is less the woman’s than the man’s, as the choice depended on her the least.

_Mme. de Rieux._

* * * * *

Love lessens the woman’s refinement and strengthens the man’s.

_Richter._

* * * * *

Who takes an eel by the tail, or a woman at her word, soon finds he holds nothing.

_Proverb._

* * * * *

Homeliness is the best guardian of a young girl’s virtue.

_Mme. de Genlis._

* * * * *

In condemning the vanity of women, men complain of the fire they themselves have kindled.

_Lingrée._

* * * * *

A prude ought to be condemned to meet only indiscreet lovers.

_Raisson._

* * * * *

Women always speak the truth, but not the whole truth.

_Italian Proverb._

* * * * *

If all women’s faces were cast in the same mould, that mould would be the grave of love.

_Bichat._

* * * * *

What colour would it not have given to my thoughts, and what thrice-washed whiteness to my words, had I been fed on woman’s praises.

_Holmes._ * * * * *

One may see the heart of women through the rents which one may make in their self-love.

_Anonymous._

* * * * *

Women and music should never be dated.

_Goldsmith._

* * * * *

Men never are consoled for their first love, nor women for their last.

_Weiss._

* * * * *

A timorous woman often drops into her grave before she is done deliberating.

_Addison._

* * * * *

It is much worse to irritate an old woman than a dog.

_Menander._

* * * * *

There are women so hard to please that it seems as if nothing less than an angel will suit them; hence it comes that they often meet with devils.

_Marguerite de Valois._

* * * * *

Woman is a charming creature, who changes her heart as easily as her gloves.

_Balzac._

* * * * *

Women go further in love than most men, but men go further in friendship than women.

_La Bruyère._

* * * * *

Woman’s function is a guiding, not a determining one.

_Ruskin._

* * * * *

At first woman fosters our dearest hopes with the affection of a mother; then, like a giddy hen she forsakes the nest.

_Goethe._

* * * * *

A girl of sixteen accepts love; a woman of thirty incites it.

_Ricard._

* * * * *

A woman who loves, however erring, can never be entirely selfish, for love has a humanising influence, and a true passion renders any self-sacrifice easy.

_Peabody._

* * * * *

A secret passion defends the heart of a woman better than her moral sense.

_De La Bretonne._

* * * * *

Women’s hearts are made of stout leather; there’s a plaguey sight of wear in them.

_Haliburton._

* * * * *

A woman who pretends to laugh at love is like the child who sings at night when he is afraid.

_Rousseau._

* * * * *

Woman among savages is a beast of burden; in Asia she is a piece of furniture; in Europe she is a spoiled child.

_De Meilhan._

* * * * *

Women that are least bashful are not infrequently the most modest.

_Colton._

* * * * *

True feeling is a rustic vulgarity the flirt does not tolerate; she counts its healthiest and most honest manifestation all sentiment.

_Mitchell._

* * * * *

Shakespeare has no heroes, he has only heroines.

_Ruskin._

* * * * *

Some men are different; all women are alike.

_Delvau._

* * * * *

The empire of woman is an empire of sweetness, skilfulness and attractiveness; her orders are caresses, her evils are tears.

_Rousseau._

* * * * *

Women need not be beautiful every day of their lives; it is sufficient that they have moments which one does not forget, and the return of which one expects.

_Cherbuliez._

* * * * *

There are some lips from which even the proudest women love to hear the censure which appears to disprove indifference.

_Lytton._

* * * * *

It is in the nature of the feminine sex to seek here below to corrupt men, and therefore wise men never abandon themselves to the seductions of women.

_Laws of Manu._

* * * * *

Would that the race of women had never existed—except for me alone!

_Euripides._

* * * * *

Fools that on women trust; for in their speech is death, hell in their smile.

_Tasso._

* * * * *

At the age of sixty, to marry a beautiful girl of sixteen is to imitate those ignorant people who buy books to be read by their friends.

_Ricard._

* * * * *

Women forgive injuries, but never forget slights.

_Haliburton._

* * * * *

The virtue of women is often the love of reputation and quiet.

_Rochefoucauld._

* * * * *

Woman is the most precious jewel taken from Nature’s casket for the ornamentation and happiness of man.

_Guyard._

* * * * *

Women have such a wonderful power of secreting adjectives that they cannot speak the truth when they try.

_Sheldon._

* * * * *

Women divine that they are loved long before it is told them.

_Marivaux._

* * * * *

The nervous fluid in man is consumed by the brain, in woman by the heart; it is there that they are most sensitive.

_Bayle._

* * * * *

There will always remain something to be said of woman, as long as there is one on the earth.

_De Boufflers._

* * * * *

The virtue of widows is a laborious virtue; they have to combat constantly with the remembrance of past bliss.

_Jerome._

* * * * *

A woman whose ruling passion is not vanity is superior to any man of equal capacity.

_Lavater._

* * * * *

Woman’s natural mission is to love, to love but one, to love always.

_Michelet._

* * * * *

One reason why women are forbidden to preach the gospel is that they would persuade without argument and reprove without giving offence.

_John Newton._

* * * * *

How little do lovely women know what awful beings they are in the eyes of inexperienced youth.

_Washington Irving._

* * * * *

During their youth women wish to be treated as divinities; they adore the ideal; they cannot bear the idea of being what Nature wishes them to be.

_Anonymous._

* * * * *

Love is a bird that sings in the heart of a woman.

_Karr._

* * * * *

Woman’s happiness is in obeying. She objects to men who abdicate too much.

_Michelet._

* * * * *

Nature sent woman into the world with the bridal dower of love.

_Richter._

* * * * *

The moral amelioration of man constitutes the chief mission of women.

_Comte._

* * * * *

Most ladies who have had what is considered as an education, have no idea of an education progressive through life.

_Foster._

* * * * *

One of the principal occupations of men is to divine women.

_Lacretelle._

* * * * *

Men do not always love those they esteem; women, on the contrary, esteem only those they love.

_Dubay._

* * * * *

I will not affirm that women have no character; rather, they have a new one every day.

_Heine._

* * * * *

The only person who can cure one of a woman is that woman herself.

_Anonymous._

* * * * *

Virtue is a beautiful thing in women when they don’t go about with it like a child with a drum, making all sorts of noise with it.

_Jerrold._

* * * * *

Wiles and deceits are woman’s specialities.

_Æschylus._

* * * * *

What man seeks in love is woman; what woman seeks in love is man.

_Houssaye._

* * * * *

There is no grace that is taught by the dancing-master, no style adopted into the etiquette of courts, but was first the whim and mere action of some brilliant woman.

_Emerson._

* * * * *

The conversation of women in society resembles the straw used in packing china; it is nothing, yet without it, everything would be broken.

_Mme. de Salm._

* * * * *

The woman who does not choose to love should cut the matter short at once by holding out no hope to her suitor.

_Marguerite de Valois._

* * * * *

One single honest man may yet be seen; but wander all the world round to find one honest woman, he will search in vain.

_Wieland._

* * * * *

A woman forgives the audacity which her beauty has prompted us to be guilty of.

_Lesage._

* * * * *

To marry a wife, if we regard the truth, is an evil, but it is a necessary evil.

_Menander._

* * * * *

Nothing is more difficult to choose than a good husband—unless it be to choose a good wife.

_Rousseau._

* * * * *

The rudest man, inspired by love, is more persuasive than the most eloquent man, if uninspired.

_La Rochefoucauld._

* * * * *

One of the sweetest pleasures of a woman is to cause regret.

_Gavarni._

* * * * *

Constancy is the chimera of love.

_Vauvenargues._

* * * * *

The pretension of youth always gives to a woman a few more years than she really has.

_Jouy._

* * * * *

I have only one advice to give you—fall in love with all women.

_Montmarin._

* * * * *

A beautiful face is the most beautiful of all spectacles.

_La Bruyère._

* * * * *

The sweetest harmony is the sound of the voice of the woman one loves.

_La Bruyère._

* * * * *

To marry is to domesticate the Recording Angel!

_R. L. Stevenson._

* * * * *

When one writes of woman he must reserve the right to laugh at his ideas of the day before.

_Ricard._

* * * * *

Who hath a fair wife hath need of more than two eyes.

_Proverb._

* * * * *

Men bestow compliments only on women who deserve none.

_Mme. Bachi._

* * * * *

Woman is more the companion of her own thoughts and feelings, and if they are turned to ministers of sorrow, where shall she look for consolation?

_Washington Irving._

* * * * *

Vanity, shame and, above all, temperament often makes the valour of men and the virtue of women.

_La Rochefoucauld._

* * * * *

Bachelors are providential beings; God created them for the consolation of widows and the hope of maids.

_De Finod._

* * * * *

As the faculty of writing is chiefly a masculine endowment, the reproach of making the world miserable has been always thrown upon the women.

_Johnson._

* * * * *

We look at one little woman’s face we love, as we look at the face of our mother earth, and see all sorts of answers to our yearnings.

_George Eliot._

* * * * *

There are some women who seem cold and beautiful stones, their hearts icicles, their tears frozen gems pressed out by injured pride.

_Alger._

* * * * *

Position, Wren said, is essential to the perfecting of beauty—a fine building is lost in a dark lane; a statue should be in the air; much more true is it of woman.

_Emerson._

* * * * *

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

_De Lenclos._

* * * * *

Most women spend their lives in robbing the old tree from which Eve plucked the first fruit.

_Feuillet._

* * * * *

What is it that love does to women? Without it, she only sleeps; with it alone, she lives.

_Ouida._

* * * * *

Female levity is no less fatal to them after marriage than before.

_Addison._

* * * * *

The highest dressers, the highest face-painters, are not the loveliest women, but such as have lost their loveliness, or never had any.

_Leigh Hunt._

* * * * *

The heart of a woman never grows old; when it has ceased to love it has ceased to live.

_Rochepedre._

* * * * *

Neither in adversity nor in the joys of prosperity let me be associated with woman-kind.

_Æschylus._

* * * * *

Women ask if a man is discreet, as men ask if a woman is pretty.

_Anonymous._

* * * * *

It is only the coward who reproaches as a dishonour the love a woman has cherished for him.

_Mme. de Lambert._

* * * * *

There is scarcely a single cause in which a woman is not engaged in some way fomenting the suit.

_Juvenal._

* * * * *

Do not take women from the bedside of those who suffer; it is their post of honour.

_Mme. Fée._

* * * * *

It is lucky for the poets that their mistresses are not obliged to sit to them. They would never write a line.

_Leigh Hunt._

* * * * *

It is easier for a woman to defend her virtue against men than her reputation against women.

_Rochebrune._

* * * * *

Twice is a woman dear—when she comes to the house and when she leaves it.

_Anonymous._

* * * * *

A woman is like your shadow; follow her, she flies; fly from her, she follows.

_Proverb._

* * * * *

Woman is a changeable thing, as our Virgil informed us at school; but her change _par excellence_ is from the fairy you woo to the brownie you wed.

_Lytton._

* * * * *

How many ways to the heart has a woman?

_Channing._

* * * * *

What manly eloquence could produce such an effect as woman’s silence.

_Michelet._

* * * * *

When maidens sue, men live like gods.

_Proverb._

* * * * *

I think it takes a great deal from a woman’s modesty, going into public life; and modesty is her greatest charm.

_Mrs Ward Beecher._

* * * * *

The passion for praise, which is so very vehement in the fair sex, produces excellent effects in women of sense.

_Addison._

* * * * *

With women, friendship ends when rivalry begins.

_Anonymous._

* * * * *

A woman is easily governed if a man takes her hand.

_La Bruyère._

* * * * *

The lover cannot paint his maiden to his fancy poor and solitary.

_Emerson._

* * * * *

The man who can govern a woman can govern a nation.

_Balzac._