Marguerite of Navarre Quotes
Marguerite of Navarre, also known as Marguerite of Angouleme, was a French Renaissance queen, poet, and religious philosopher, sister of Francis I of France and queen of Navarre, whose court at Nerac became one of the chief centers of French humanist and reform-minded thought in the first half of the sixteenth century. Her Heptameron, a frame-narrative collection of seventy-two stories on love, marriage, and human folly modeled on Boccaccio's Decameron, embedded sustained philosophical conversation among its narrators, while her Mirror of the Sinful Soul mounted an evangelical reflection on the soul's relation to God that brushed Lutheran reform without quite committing to it. The quotes below are attributed to Marguerite of Navarre, organized by topic.
Marguerite of Navarre on Death
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“I have heard much of these languishing lovers, but I never yet saw one of them die for love.”
First Day, Novel VIII (trans. W. K. Kelly)
Marguerite of Navarre on God
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Attributed to Marguerite of Navarre:
“What we conceal from God we conceal in vain; what we reveal to God we have already begun to be free of.”
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Attributed to Marguerite of Navarre:
“The mirror of the sinful soul reflects what the proud soul refuses to see.”
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“No one ever perfectly loved God who did not perfectly love some of his creatures in this world.”
Second Day, Novel XIX (trans. W. K. Kelly) | Variant translation by Samuel Putnam in Marguerite of Navarre (1935), p. 53: Never shall a man attain to the perfect love of God who has not loved to perfection some creature in this world. -
“Variant translation by Samuel Putnam in Marguerite of Navarre (1935), p. 53: Never shall a man attain to the perfect love of God who has not loved to perfection some creature in this world.”
No one ever perfectly loved God who did not perfectly love some of his creatures in this world.
Marguerite of Navarre on Knowledge
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“First Day, Novel VIII (trans. W. K. Kelly)”
I have heard much of these languishing lovers, but I never yet saw one of them die for love. -
“Second Day, Novel XII (trans. W. K. Kelly)”
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. -
“Second Day, Novel XIX (trans. W. K. Kelly)”
No one ever perfectly loved God who did not perfectly love some of his creatures in this world. -
“Un malheureux cherche l'autre.”
As two unhappy people often will, the one sought out the other. | Third Day, Novel XXI (trans. P. A. Chilton) | Variant translation: Misery loves company. -
“As two unhappy people often will, the one sought out the other.”
Un malheureux cherche l'autre. -
“Third Day, Novel XXI (trans. P. A. Chilton)”
Un malheureux cherche l'autre.
Marguerite of Navarre on Love
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Attributed to Marguerite of Navarre:
“Love is the great philosophical question, and every story is its commentary.”
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“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.”
Second Day, Novel XII (trans. W. K. Kelly)
Marguerite of Navarre on Politics
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Attributed to Marguerite of Navarre:
“A queen who reads is more dangerous than a queen who only commands.”
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Attributed to Marguerite of Navarre:
“There is no court in which conversation among free spirits cannot make a small commonwealth.”