Part 4

* * * * *

An old woman is a very bad bride, but a very good wife.

_Fielding._

* * * * *

Apelles used to paint a good housewife on a snail, to import that she was a home-keeper.

_Howell._

* * * * *

Man argues woman may not be trusted too far; woman feels man cannot be trusted too near.

_Browne._

* * * * *

Nature has hardly formed a woman ugly enough to be insensible to flattery upon her person.

_Chesterfield._

* * * * *

God has placed the genius of women in their hearts, because the works of this genius are always works of love.

_Lamartine._

* * * * *

To think of the part one little woman can play in the life of a man, so that to renounce her may be a very good imitation of heroism, and to win her may be a discipline!

_George Eliot._

* * * * *

The truth is, women are lost because they do not deliberate.

_Amelia E. Barr._

* * * * *

When God thought of _Mother_, he must have laughed with satisfaction, and framed it quickly, so rich, so deep, so divine, so full of soul, power and beauty was the conception.

_Ward Beecher._

* * * * *

A woman may always help her husband by what she knows, however little; by what she half knows, or mis-knows, she will only tease him.

_Ruskin._

* * * * *

Diffuse knowledge generally among women, and you will at once cure the conceit which knowledge occasions while it is rare.

_Sydney Smith._

* * * * *

The love of woman has in all ages given birth in man to passionate desires, poetic dreams, deferential attentions, persuasive forms of politeness.

_Alger._

* * * * *

A lady who had not learned discretion by experience and came to an evil end.

_Holmes._

* * * * *

In the elevated order of ideas, the life of man is glory; the life of woman is love.

_Balzac._

* * * * *

Women have more strength in their looks than we have in our laws, and more power by their tears than we have by our arguments.

_Saville._

* * * * *

The path of a good woman is indeed strewn with flowers; but they rise behind her steps, not before them. “Her feet have touched the meadows and left the daisies rosy.”

_Ruskin._

* * * * *

The masculine personal pronoun is singularly restricted in woman’s judgment. Passion has curtailed her grammar amazingly. She can remember only one number (that is Greek).

_Browne._

* * * * *

There is nothing sadder than to look at dressy old things, who have reached the frozen latitudes beyond fifty, and who persist in appearing in the airy costume of the tropics.

_Sheldon._

* * * * *

A woman finds it a much easier task to do an evil than a virtuous deed.

_Plautus._

* * * * *

I have always said it: Nature meant to make woman its masterpiece.

_Lessing._

* * * * *

Woman is the organ of the devil.

_De Varennes._

* * * * *

Women are a breed the like of which neither sea nor earth produces anything; he who is always with them knows them best.

_Euripides._

* * * * *

Women make us lose paradise, but how frequently we find it again in their arms.

_De Finod._

* * * * *

Marriage has its unknown great men as war has its Napoleons, poetry its Cheniers, and philosophy its Descartes.

_Balzac._

* * * * *

Vanity ruins more women than love.

_Du Deffand._

* * * * *

Extremes in everything is a characteristic of woman.

_De Goncourt._

* * * * *

One loves more the first time, better the second.

_Rochepedre._

* * * * *

Of all religions love is the most deceptive.

_Paleologue._

* * * * *

The Indian axiom “Do not strike even with a flower a woman guilty of a hundred crimes” is my rule of conduct.

_Balzac._

* * * * *

To be loved as in books is a dream.

_Bourget._

* * * * *

The cruellest revenge of a woman is often to remain faithful to a man.

_Bossuet._

* * * * *

Women, cats and birds are the creatures that waste most time on their toilets.

_Nodier._

* * * * *

Female goodness seldom keeps its ground against laughter, flattery, or fashion.

_Johnson._

* * * * *

I received money with her, and for the dowry have sold my authority.

_Plautus._

* * * * *

There is no torture that a woman would not suffer to enhance her beauty.

_Montaigne._

* * * * *

Most women proceed like the flea, by leaps and jumps.

_Balzac._

* * * * *

The most fascinating women are those that can most enrich the every-day moments of existence.

_Leigh Hunt._

* * * * *

Learn, above all, how to manage women; their thousand “Ahs” and “Ohs,” so thousand fold, can be cured.

_Goethe._

* * * * *

All women are fond of minds that inhabit fine bodies, and of souls that have fine eyes.

_Joubert._

* * * * *

When women love us, they forgive us everything, even our crimes; when they do not love us, they give us credit for nothing, not even for our virtues.

_Balzac._

* * * * *

She who spat in my face while I was, shall come to kiss my feet when I am no more.

_Montaigne._

* * * * *

Some women are so just and discerning that they never see an opportunity of being generous.

_Anonymous._

* * * * *

I am glad I am not a man, as I should be obliged to marry a woman.

_Mme. de Stael._

* * * * *

There would be no such animals as prudes or coquettes in the world were there not such an animal as man.

_Addison._

* * * * *

Women have tongues of craft and hearts of guile.

_Tasso._

* * * * *

A coquette has no heart; she has only vanity; it is adorers she seeks, not love.

_Poincelot._

* * * * *

The reputation of a woman may be compared to a mirror, shining and bright, but liable to be sullied by every breath that comes near it.

_Cervantes._

* * * * *

Many men kill themselves for love, but many more women die of it.

_Lemontey._

* * * * *

The brain-women never interest us like the heart-women; white roses please less than red.

_Holmes._

* * * * *

A woman is seldom roused to great and courageous exertion, but when something most dear to her is in immediate danger.

_Baillie._

* * * * *

A man can keep another person’s secret better than his own; a woman, on the contrary, keeps her secret though she tells all others.

_La Bruyère._

* * * * *

Men speak of what they know; women, of what pleases them.

_Rousseau._

* * * * *

A woman for a general, and the soldiers will be women.

_Latin Proverb._

* * * * *

Love is the most terrible, and also the most generous, of the passions; it is the only one which includes in its dreams the happiness of someone else.

_Karr._

* * * * *

VIRTUE: a word easy to pronounce, difficult to understand.

_Voltaire._

* * * * *

Marriage should combat without respite or mercy that monster that devours everything—habit.

_Balzac._

* * * * *

It is easy to find a lover and to retain a friend; what is difficult is to find the friend and retain the lover.

_Levis._

* * * * *

It’s better to love to-day than to-morrow. A pleasure postponed is a pleasure lost.

_Ricard._

* * * * *

Woman conceals only what she does not know.

_Proverb._

* * * * *

Love, pleasure, and inconstancy are but the consequences of a desire to know the truth.

_Duclos._

* * * * *

A coquette is one that is never to be persuaded out of the passion she has to please, nor out of a good opinion of her own beauty.

_Addison._

* * * * *

The vows that woman makes to her fond lover are only fit to be written on air or on the swiftly running stream.

_Catullus._

* * * * *

When a _lady_ walks the streets, she leaves her virtuous indignation countenance at home.

_Holmes._

* * * * *

The humour of affecting a superior carriage generally rises from a false notion of the weakness of the female understanding in general.

_Steele._

* * * * *

Woman is mistress of the art of completely embittering the life of the person on whom she depends.

_Goethe._

* * * * *

A woman submits to the yoke of opinion, but a man rebels.

_De Finod._

* * * * *

The only thing that has been taught successfully to women is to wear becomingly the fig-leaf they received from their first mother.

_Diderot._

* * * * *

Woman is like the reed that bends to every breeze, but breaks not in the tempest.

_Whately._

* * * * *

Women are happier in the love they inspire than in that which they feel; men are just the contrary.

_De Beauchêne._

* * * * *

To a susceptible youth, like myself, brought up in the country, women are perfect divinities.

_Washington Irving._

* * * * *

Women should be careful of their conduct, for appearances sometimes injure them as much as faults.

_Girard._

* * * * *

Excess of passion and the force of love,—arguments than which there can be none more powerful to assuage the irritation of a woman’s mind.

_Titus Livius._

* * * * *

The reason why so few women are touched by friendship is that they find it dull when they have experienced love.

_La Rochefoucauld._

* * * * *

Where women are, the better things are implied if not spoken.

_Bronson Alcott._

* * * * *

A woman is a well-served table that one sees with different eyes before and after the meal.

_Anonymous._

* * * * *

The materials that go to the making of one woman were set free by the abstraction from inanimate nature of one man’s worth of masculine constituents.

_Holmes._

* * * * *

Women are wise impromptu, fools on reflection.

_Italian Proverb._

* * * * *

To say the truth, I never yet knew a tolerable woman to be fond of her own sex.

_Swift._

* * * * *

“I like women,” said a clear-headed man of the world, “they are so finished.” They finish society, manners, language. Form and ceremony are their realm. They embellish trifles.

_Emerson._

* * * * *

An opinion formed by a woman is inflexible; the fact is not half so stubborn.

_Anonymous._

* * * * *

There is one thing admirable in women; they never reason about their blameworthy actions; even in their dissimulation there is an element of sincerity.

_Balzac._

* * * * *

A mother dreads no memories,—those shadows have all melted away in the dawn of Baby’s smiles.

_George Eliot._

* * * * *

Nature has said to woman: Be fair if thou canst, be virtuous if thou wilt; but considerate thou must be.

_Beaumarchais._

* * * * *

A woman either loves or hates; she knows no medium.

_Syrus._

* * * * *

The error of certain women is to imagine that, to acquire distinction, they must imitate the manners of men.

_De Maistre._

* * * * *

Women’s virtue is the music of stringed instruments, which sound best in a room.

_Richter._

* * * * *

With women, the desire to bedeck themselves is always the desire to please.

_Marmontel._

* * * * *

In life, as in a promenade, woman must lean on a man above her.

_Karr._

* * * * *

Kindness in women, not their beauteous looks, shall win my love.

_Shakespeare._

* * * * *

The revolution the Boston boys started had to run in mother’s milk before it ran in man’s blood.

_Holmes._

* * * * *

Women swallow at one mouthful the lie that flatters, and drink drop by drop the truth that is bitter.

_Diderot._

* * * * *

A shameless woman is the worst of men.

_Young._

* * * * *

There has been no church, however superstitious, that has not been adorned by many Christian women devoting their entire lives to assuaging the sufferings of men.

_Lecky._

* * * * *

I dare say she’s like the rest of the women,—thinks two and two’ll come to make five, if she cries and bothers enough about it.

_George Eliot._

* * * * *

We need the friendship of a man in great trials, of a woman in the affairs of everyday life.

_Thomas._

* * * * *

How can one who hates men love a woman without blushing?

_Richter._

* * * * *

Some women need much adorning, as some meat needs much seasoning to incite appetite.

_Rochebrune._

* * * * *

’Tis beauty that doth make woman proud; . . . . . . . . . ’Tis virtue that doth make them most admired; . . . . . . . . . ’Tis government that makes them seem divine.

_Shakespeare._

* * * * *

Women like audacity; when one astounds them, he interests them; and when one interests them, he is very sure to please them.

_Anonymous._

* * * * *

Women should despise slander, and fear to provoke it.

_Mdlle. de Scuderi._

* * * * *

Nature is in earnest when she makes a woman.

_Holmes._

* * * * *

However virtuous a woman may be, a compliment on her virtue is what gives her the least pleasure.

_Prince de Ligne._

* * * * *

It is not always for virtue’s sake that women are virtuous.

_La Rochefoucauld._

* * * * *

The society of women is the element of good manners.

_Goethe._

* * * * *

Woman is the Sunday of man.

_Michelet._

* * * * *

If a woman has any malicious mischief to do, her memory is immortal.

_Plautus._

* * * * *

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

_De Lenclos._

* * * * *

Even if women were immortal, they could never foresee their last lover.

_De Lamennais._

* * * * *

It has been justly observed that heroines are best painted in general terms.

_Leigh Hunt._

* * * * *

Love is superior to genius.

_De Musset._

* * * * *

Time sooner or later vanquishes love; friendship alone subdues time.

_D’Arconville._

* * * * *

A beautiful woman with the qualities of a noble man is the most perfect thing in nature; we find in her all the merits of both sexes.

_La Bruyère._

* * * * *

One is alone in a crowd when one suffers, or when one loves.

_Rochepedre._

* * * * *

All the passions die with the years; self-love alone never dies.

_Voltaire._

* * * * *

A short absence quickens love, a long absence kills it.

_Mirabeau._

* * * * *

Marriage often unites for life two people who scarcely know each other.

_Balzac._

* * * * *

If a woman refrains from absurd or hateful words and acts, and if she is beautiful, we are straightway convinced that she is a paragon of wisdom and morality.

_Tolstoi._

* * * * *

If we men require more perfection from women than from ourselves, it is doing them honour.

_Johnson._

* * * * *

How many women since the days of Echo and Narcissus have pined themselves into air for the love of men who were in love only with themselves.

_Anna Jameson._

* * * * *

The castle that parleys and the woman who listens are ready to surrender.

_Proverb._

* * * * *

Strange that the Gods should have given an antidote against the venom of savage serpents and none against that of a bad woman.

_Euripides._

* * * * *

Women dress less to be clothed than to be adorned. When alone before their mirror they think more of men than of themselves.

_Rochebrune._

* * * * *

The woman we love most is often the woman to whom we express it the least.

_De Beauchêne._

* * * * *

Woman’s counsel is not worth much, yet he that despises it is no wiser than he should be.

_Cervantes._

* * * * *

Woman is the nervous part of humanity; man the muscular.

_Halle._

* * * * *

O woman, woman! thou art formed to bless the heart of restless man.

_Bird._

* * * * *

Women are often ruined by their sensitiveness and saved by their coquetry.

_Mdlle. Azais._

* * * * *

Women are compounds of plain-sewing and make-believe—daughters of Sham and Hem.

_Sheldon._

* * * * *

Finesse has been given to woman to compensate the force of man.

_De Laclos._

* * * * *

Women are demons who make us enter hell through the gates of paradise.

_Anonymous._

* * * * *

It is to teach us early how to think and how to excite our infantile imagination, that prudent nature has given to women so much chit-chat.

_La Bruyère._

* * * * *

Oh, woman! woman! thou shouldst have a few sins of thy own to answer for! Thou art the author of such a book of follies in man!

_Lytton._

* * * * *

Woman’s dignity lies in her being unknown; her glory in the esteem of her husband; and her pleasure in the welfare of her family.

_Rousseau._

* * * * *

Men _say_ of women what pleases them; women _do_ with men what pleases them.

_Ségur._

* * * * *

Woman must not belong to herself; she is bound to alien destinies.

_Schiller._

* * * * *

Don’t trust your horse in the field, nor your wife in your home.

_Russian Proverb._

* * * * *

Woman has been fed upon flattery until it is not strange she hungers for substantial diet, whose best sauce is understanding and appreciation.

_Browne._

* * * * *

One thing only I believe in a woman—that she will not come to life again after she is dead.

_Anonymous._

* * * * *

The life of a woman is a long dissimulation. Candour, beauty, freshness, virginity, modesty,—a woman has each of these but once.

_La Bretonne._

* * * * *

Men call physicians only when they suffer; women when they are only afflicted with _ennui_.

_Mme. de Genlis._

* * * * *

Men say more evil of a woman than they think; it is the contrary with women toward men.

_Dubay._

* * * * *

A woman’s rank lies in the fulness of her womanhood; therein alone she is royal.

_George Eliot._

* * * * *

The deceit of priests and the cunning of women surpass all else.

_Burger._

* * * * *

Nothing is better than a good wife; and nothing is worse than a bad one, who is fond of gadding about.

_Hesiod._

* * * * *

Woman often dies for love, as spotless maidens have died to live forever in the pantheon of sentiment.

_Browne._

* * * * *

Love, that is but an episode in the life of man, is the entire story of the life of woman.

_Mme. de Stael._

* * * * *

Women, priests, and poultry have never enough.

_Proverb._

* * * * *

Woman is too soft to hate permanently; even if a hundred men have been a grief to her, she will still love the hundred and first.

_Kinkel._

* * * * *

Intellect is to a woman’s nature what her skirt is to her dress.

_Holmes._

* * * * *

Without woman man would be rough, rude, solitary, and would ignore all the graces, which are but the smiles of love.

_Chateaubriand._

* * * * *

No woman who is absolutely and entirely good, in the ordinary sense of the word, gets a man’s most fervent, passionate love.

_Mrs W. K. Clifford._

* * * * *

It is a misfortune for a woman never to be loved, but it is a humiliation to be loved no more.

_Montesquieu._

* * * * *

Woman is the salvation or the destruction of the family.

_Amiel._

* * * * *

An old coquette has all the defects of a young one, and none of her charms.

_Dupuy._

* * * * *

Women, like the plants in the woods, derive their softness and tenderness from the shade.

_Landor._

* * * * *

One should choose a wife with the ears rather than with the eyes.

_Proverb._

* * * * *

From many a woman’s fortune this truth is clear as day; that falsely smiling pleasure with pain requites us ever.

_Nibelungenlied._

* * * * *

Half the sorrows of women would be averted if they could repress the speech they know to be useless,—nay, the speech they have resolved not to utter.

_George Eliot._

* * * * *

Men know that women are an over-match for them, and therefore choose the weakest and most ignorant.

_Johnson._

* * * * *

Woman’s sensibility lights up, and quivers and falls, like the flame of a coal fire.

_Mitchell._

* * * * *

The weakness of women gives to some men a victory that their merit would never gain.

_Anonymous._

* * * * *

Women like brave men exceedingly, but audacious men still more.

_Le Mesle._

* * * * *

The mistake of many women is to return sentiment for gallantry.

_Jouy._

* * * * *

Women can rarely be deceived, for they are accustomed to deceive.

_Aristophanes._

* * * * *

There are no pleasures where women are not.

_Marie De Romieu._

* * * * *

Women’s tender hearts are much more susceptible of good impressions than the minds of the other sex.

_Steele._

* * * * *

Coquettes are like hunters who are fond of hunting, but do not eat the game.

_Anonymous._

* * * * *

Marriage with a good woman is a harbour in the tempest; but with a bad woman, it proves a tempest in the harbour.

_Petit-Senn._

* * * * *

A man without religion is to be pitied, but a godless woman is a horror above all things.

_Elizabeth Evans._

* * * * *