Life & Wisdom Quote by Ninon de L'Enclos

Ninon de L'Enclos lands the line like a stiletto: it pretends to diagnose virtue, then swaps in something far less flattering to the men doing the diagnosing. In a culture trained to read a woman's "no" as either saintliness or coy theater, she suggests a third explanation that’s both more practical and more dangerous: refusal can be technique. Resistance, in this framing, is not a moral halo but a learned instrument, shaped by prior encounters, social risk, and the economics of reputation.

The subtext is quietly radical for 17th-century France, where female chastity was less a private ethic than a public asset. De L'Enclos, a celebrated salonniere and courtesan who navigated elite male attention with unusual autonomy, is puncturing the sentimental story men like to tell themselves. If resistance is "virtue", the pursuer can cast himself as tempted by an angel. If it’s "experience", the pursuer is facing a strategist who knows how desire gets used, how promises evaporate, how quickly a woman's standing can be traded away.

It’s also a piece of social satire aimed at male credulity. The line suggests men routinely misread boundaries because it flatters them: they want innocence to be the explanation, not calculation, negotiation, or self-protection. De L'Enclos doesn’t romanticize the game; she exposes it. Underneath the cynicism is a hard-earned feminist realism: in unequal conditions, even refusal becomes a skill - and moral language becomes a mask.