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.

— Christine de Pizan

[A] person whose head is bowed and whose eyes are heavy cannot look at the light.

— 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.

— Christine de Pizan

By nature man without woman can feel no joy. She is his mother, his sister, his loving friend. She is seldom his enemy.

— Christine de Pizan

Causing any damage or harm to one party in order to help another party is not justice, and likewise, attacking all feminine conduct [in order to warn men away from individual women who are deceitful] is contrary to the truth, just as I will show you with a hypothetical case. Let us suppose they did this intending to draw fools away from foolishness. It would be as if I attacked fire -- a very good and necessary element nevertheless -- because some people burnt themselves, or water because someone drowned. The same can be said of all good things which can be used well or used badly. But one must not attack them if fools abuse them.

— Christine de Pizan

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]?

— Christine de Pizan

For this reason, it is well said that misfortune is sometimes good for something, for it teaches at the same time that it hurts.

— Christine de Pizan

For you know that any evil spoken of women so generally only hurts those who say it, not women themselves.

— Christine de Pizan

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?

— Christine de Pizan

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?

— Christine de Pizan