C.N. Douglas, comp. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical. 1917.
Flirting
Flirtation is the tomb of virtue.
Who is it can read a woman?
Alas, the transports beauty can inspire!
One expresses well only the love he does not feel.
It is the same in love as in war; a fortress that parleys is half taken.
Cupid makes it his sport to pull the warrior’s plum.
Flirtation is a circulating library, in which we seldom ask twice for the same volume.
Do you know a young and beautiful woman who is not ready to flirt—just a little?
There are women who fly their falcons at any game, little birds and all.
As the excitement of the game increases, prudence is sure to diminish.
That soul-subduing sentiment, harshly called flirtation, which is the spell of a country house.
Flirtation and coquetry are so nearly allied as to be identical; both are the art of successful and pleasing deception.
Admiration is natural; and it has been said there are many lovable women, but no perfect ones.
Novelty is to love like bloom to fruit; it gives a luster which is easily effaced, but never returns.
There are few young women in existence who have not the power of fascinating, if they choose to exert it.
There are some women who are flirts upon principle; they consider it their duty to make themselves as pleasing as possible to every one.
I assisted at the birth of that most significant word flirtation, which dropped from the most beautiful mouth in the world, and which has since received the sanction of our most accurate laureate in one of his comedies.