We are only vulnerable and ridiculous through our pretensions. [ Mme, d Girardin ]

Beauty deceives women in making them establish on an ephemeral power the pretensions of a whole life. [ Bignicourt ]

True glory strikes root, and even extends itself; all false pretensions fall as do flowers, nor can anything feigned be lasting. [ Cicero ]

When a woman is deliberating with herself whom she shall choose of many near each other in other pretensions, certainly he of the best understanding is to be preferred. [ Steele ]

It may be laid down as a general rule that no woman who hath any great pretensions to admiration is ever well pleased in a company where she perceives herself to fill only a second place. [ Fielding ]

Gravity, with all its pretensions, was no better, but often worse, than what a French wit had long ago defined it, viz., a mysterious carriage of the body to cover the defects of the mind. [ Sterne ]

The very essence of gravity was design, and, consequently, deceit; it was a taught trick to gain credit of the world for more sense and knowledge than a man was worth; and that with all its pretensions it was no better, but often worse, than what a French wit had long ago defined it - a mysterious carriage of the body to cover the defects of the mind. [ Sterne ]

A woman at middle age retains nothing of the pettiness of youth; she is a friend who gives you all the feminine delicacies, who displays all the graces, all the prepossessions which Nature has given to woman to please man, but who no longer sells these qualities. She is hateful or lovable, according to her pretensions to youth, whether they exist under the epidermis or whether they are dead. [ Balzac ]