“Even the most honorable of men know nothing of what love means to a woman. They feel pleasure, and that is their aim. A woman believes that love itself is her whole aim and pleasure merely one branch of a vast tree, deeply rooted in her heart. She believes it is her profound duty to care for this tree, nourish it each day, and give all of its fruits exclusively to one man and to her children. This in itself demands a sacrifice that men cannot comprehend.”

“The Revolution has shown us that the advantages and opinion of society, which I thought everything, are really nothing, and always have been nothing. It is only our vanity that led us to believe otherwise...”

“Not to give away the woman one loved, but to back her up in her mistakes -- once they had gone a certain length -- that was perhaps chief among the inevitabilities of the abjection of love. ”

“She cannot remember her mother's face... This is the woman who brought her into the world... This is the woman her father loved. Yet every time she turns her mind's eye in her mother's direction she sees only the men she is talking to, the children she is playing with, the maids to whom she is giving orders... She begins to realise how alike they are, she and her mother, these blank sheets on which men have written their stories, the white space between the words, making all their achievements possible and contributing nothing to the meaning.”

“She would follow, her dream of love, the dictates of her heart that told her he was her all in all, the only man in all the world for her for love was the master guide. Come what might she would be wild, untrammelled, free.”

“When a woman submits to a man, it's the most precious gift she can give. Herself. Unreservedly. The man has to respect and honor that gift above all else. Even if he respects nothing else in the world, he must respect the woman in his care. It's his sworn duty to protect, honor and cherish his submissive. To take care of her and provide a safe haven. Someone who would put his own needs above his woman's is no man.”

“It is so easy for a woman to become what the man she loves believes her to be”