C.N. Douglas, comp. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical. 1917.
Chastity
Modesty and chastity are twins.
She that has that is clad in complete steel.
Of chastity, the ornaments are chaste.
The woman that deliberates is lost.
As chaste as is the bud ere it be blown.
To the pure all things are pure.
Whiter than new snow on a raven’s back.
Chastity is the seal of grace.
Chastity, like piety, is a uniform grace.
As chaste as unsunn’d snow.
Chastity is the ermine of woman’s soul.
Let women paint their eyes with tints of chastity.
Chastity, once lost, cannot be recalled; it goes only once.
A woman’s character is as delicate as her eye; it can bear no flaw.
For violets plucked, the sweetest showers will ne’er make grow again.
A man defines his standing at the court of chastity by his views of women.
Not the mountain ice, congealed to crystals, is so frosty chaste as thy victorious soul, which conquers man, and man’s proud tyrant, passion.
Vanity bids all her sons be brave, and all her daughters chaste and courteous.
The most chaste woman may be the most voluptuous, if she truly loves.
The supreme sway of chastity over the senses makes her queenly.
There needs not strength to be added to inviolate chastity; the excellency of the mind makes the body impregnable.
That chastity of look which seems to hang a veil of purest light over all beauties, and by forbidding most inflames desire.
The soul that is the abode of chastity acquires an energy which enables her to surmount with ease the obstacles that lie along the path of duty.
A beautiful and chaste woman is the perfect workmanship of God, and the true glory of angels, the rare miracle of earth, and the sole wonder of the world.
Consider what importance to society the chastity of women is. Upon that all the property in the world depends. We hang a thief for stealing a sheep; but the unchastity of a woman transfers sheep and farm and all from the right owner.
A pure mind in a chaste body is the mother of wisdom and deliberation, sober counsels and ingenuous actions, open deportment and sweet carriage, sincere principles and unprejudicate understanding, love of God and self-denial, peace and confidence, holy prayers and spiritual comfort, and a pleasure of spirit infinitely greater than the sottish pleasure of unchastity.
In Goethe’s drama, Iphigenia defends her chastity, ascribing her firmness to the gods. “No god hath said this: thine own heart hath spoken,” answered Thoas, the king. “They only speak to us through our heart,” she replies. “Have not I the right to hear them too?” he rejoins. “Thy storm of passion drowns the gentle whisper,” adds the maiden, and closes all debate.
Nothing makes a woman more esteemed by the opposite sex than chastity; whether it be that we always prize those most who are hardest to come at, or that nothing besides chastity, with its collateral attendants, truth, fixity, and constancy, gives the man a property in the person he loves, and consequently endears her to him above all things.