42 Quotes by Christine de Pizan

As for those who state that it is thanks to a woman, the lady Eve, that man was expelled from paradise, my answer to them would be that man has gained far more through Mary than he ever lost through Eve.

Ah, child and youth, if you knew the bliss which resides in the taste of knowledge, and the evil and ugliness that lies in ignorance, how well you are advised to not complain of the pain and labor of learning.

Does a rake deserve to possess anything of worth, since he chases everything in skirts and then imagines he can successfully hide his shame by slandering [women in general]?

How many women are there ... who because of their husbands' harshness spend their weary lives in the bond of marriage in greater suffering than if they were slaves among the Saracens?

[I]f you seek in every way to minimise my firm beliefs by your anti-feminist attacks, please recall that a small dagger or knife point can pierce a great, bulging sack and that a small fly can attack a great lion and speedily put him to flight.

I do not consider my deeds or my knowledge to be a great thing. The only fact is — and I can say this honestly — that I love learning and a solitary life.

The foolish rush to end their lives.Only the steadfast soul survives.

How was she created? I'm not sure if you realize this, but it was in God's image. How can anybody dare to speak ill of something which bears such a noble imprint?

I find it most offensive that the character of Reason, whom [Jean den Meun (author of the Romance of the Rose)] himself calls the daughter of God, should put forth such a statement as ... where she says by way of a proverb that "in the war of Love it is better to deceive than be deceived." And indeed I dare say that in making that statement Jean den Meun's Reason denied her Father, for the doctrine He gave was altogether different.