Marguerite de Navarre

“I have heard much of these languishing lovers, but I never yet saw one of them die for love.”

“To me it seems much better to love a woman as a woman, than to make her one's idol, as many do. For my part, I am convinced that it is better to use than to abuse.”

“No one ever perfectly loved God who did not perfectly love some of his creatures in this world.”

“He who knows his own incapacity, knows something, after all.”

“Man is wise ... when he recognises no greater enemy than himself.”

“God always helps madmen, lovers, and drunkards.”

“When one has one good day in the year, one is not wholly unfortunate.”

“Blessed, unquestionably, is he who has it in his power to do evil, yet does it not.”

“Though jealousy be produced by love as ashes are by fire, yet jealousy extinguishes love, as ashes smother the flame.”

“I never knew a mocker who was not mocked, ... a deceiver who was not deceived, or a proud man who was not humbled.”

“Some there are who are much more ashamed of confessing a sin than of committing it.”