She would rather give pleasure to one good man than be a general favourite, or win that applause of society which lasts but a day and to-morrow is turned to scorn.
A woman's judgment develops sooner than a man's; being on the defensive from her childhood up, and intrusted with a treasure so hard to keep, she is earlier acquainted with good and evil.
 Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Emile, or On Education (1762). copy citation

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Author Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Source Emile, or On Education
Topic society childhood
Date 1762
Language English
Reference
Note Translated by Barbara Foxley
Weblink http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/5427/pg5427-images.html

Context

“far from being afraid of the tedium of solitude she desires it. Her thoughts go out to him who will make solitude sweet to her. She finds strangers tedious, she wants a lover, not a circle of admirers. She would rather give pleasure to one good man than be a general favourite, or win that applause of society which lasts but a day and to-morrow is turned to scorn. A woman's judgment develops sooner than a man's; being on the defensive from her childhood up, and intrusted with a treasure so hard to keep, she is earlier acquainted with good and evil. Sophy is precocious by temperament in everything, and her judgment is more formed than that of most girls of her age. There is nothing strange in that, maturity is not always reached at the same age.” source