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Countess of Blessington
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“... egoism is in general the malady of the aged; ... we become occupied with our own existence in proportion as it ceases to be interesting to others.”
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“Men are capable of making great sacrifices, who are not willing to make the lesser ones, on which so much of the happiness of life depends. The great sacrifices are seldom called for, but the minor ones are in daily requisition; and the making them with cheerfulness and grace enhances their value ... ”
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“... I never will allow myself to form an ideal of any person I desire to see, for disappointment never fails to ensue.”
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“This is an autobiographical-loving age ... ”
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“... the difference between weakness and wickedness is much less than people suppose; and the consequences are nearly always the same.”
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“Listeners beware, for ye are doomed never to hear good of yourselves.”
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“... it is better to die young than to outlive all one loved, and all that rendered one lovable.”
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“Only vain people wage war against the vanity of others.”
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“There is no magician like Love ... ”
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“People are always willing to follow advice when it accords with their own wishes.”
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“Imagination, which is the Eldorado of the poet and of the novel-writer, often proves the most pernicious gift to the individuals who compose the talkers instead of the writers in society.”
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“Happiness consists not in having much, but in being content with little.”
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“Bores: People who talk of themselves, when you are thinking only of yourself.”
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“Prejudices are the chains forged by ignorance to keep men apart.”
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“Spring is the season of hope, and autumn is that of memory.”
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“Virtue, like a dowerless beauty, has more admirers than followers.”
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“Pleasure is like a cordial — a little of it is not injurious, but too much destroys.”
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“Friends are the thermometers by which one may judge the temperature of our fortunes.”
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“When we find that we are not liked, we assert that we are not understood; when probably the dislike we have excited proceeds from our being too fully comprehended.”
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“Some people are capable of making great sacrifices, but few are capable of concealing how much the effort has cost them; and it is this concealment that constitutes their value.”
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“Love in France is a comedy; in England a tragedy; in Italy an opera seria; and in Germany a melodrame.”
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“Life would be as insupportable without the prospect of death, as it would be without sleep.”
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“We never respect those who amuse us, however we may smile at their comic powers.”
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“Those who are formed to win general admiration, are seldom calculated to bestow individual happiness.”
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“The vices of the rich and great are mistaken for errors; and those of the poor and lowly, for crimes.”
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“There are no persons capable of stooping so low as those who desire to rise in the world.”
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“The infirmities of genius are often mistaken for its privileges.”
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“We are more prone to murmur at the punishment of our faults than to lament them.”
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“Despotism subjects a nation to one tyrant; democracy, to many. ”
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“Reason dissipates the illusions of life, but does not console us for their departure.”
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“Mountains appear more lofty, the nearer they are approached; but great men, to retain their altitude, must only be viewed from a distance.”
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“Wit is the lightning of the mind, reason the sunshine, and reflection the moonlight ... ”
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“We have a reading, a talking, and a writing public. When shall we have a thinking?”
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“Satire, like conscience, reminds us of what we often wish to forget.”
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“The future: A consolation for those who have no other.”
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“Conversation is the legs on which thought walks; and writing, the wings by which it flies.”
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“He who fears not, is to be feared.”
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“Flattery, if judiciously administered, is always acceptable, however much we may despise the flatterer.”
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“There is no cosmetic for beauty like happiness.”
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“One of the most marked characteristics of our day is a reckless neglect of principles, and a rigid adherence to their semblance.”
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“Love and enthusiasm are always ridiculous, when not reciprocated by their objects.”
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“Society punishes not the vices of its members, but their detection ...”
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“To amend mankind, moralists should show them man, not as he is, but as he ought to be.”
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“A profound knowledge of life is the least enviable of all species of knowledge, because it can only be acquired by trials that make us regret the loss of our ignorance.”
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“Grief is, of all the passions, the one that is the most ingenious and indefatigable in finding food for its own subsistence.”
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“... alas! there is no casting anchor in the stream of time!”
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“Genius is the gold in the mine, talent is the miner who works and brings it out.”
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“Talent, like beauty, to be pardoned, must be obscure and unostentatious.”
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“Borrowed thoughts, like borrowed money, only show the poverty of the borrower.”
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“Religion converts despair, which destroys, into resignation, which submits.”
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“Memory seldom fails when its office is to show us the tombs of our buried hopes.”
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“Men who would persecute others for religious opinions, prove the errors of their own.”
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“Love-matches are made by people who are content, for a month of honey, to condemn themselves to a life of vinegar.”
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“A poor man defended himself when charged with stealing food to appease the cravings of hunger, saying, the cries of the stomach silenced those of the conscience.”
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“Society seldom forgives those who have discovered the emptiness of its pleasures, and who can live independent of it and them.”
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“There are some chagrins of the heart which a friend ought to try to console without betraying a knowledge of their existence, as there are physical maladies which a physician ought to seek to heal without letting the sufferer know that he has discovered their extent.”
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“You were wise not to waste years in a lawsuit ... he who commences a suit resembles him who plants a palm-tree which he will not live to see flourish.”
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“... it is not until we have lost those we loved that we feel all their value.”
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“... the numerous family of father, mother, sister, brother, and his six children, that I have to provide for, compels me to write, when my health would demand a total repose from literary exertion ... ”
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“Calumny is the offspring of Envy.”
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“The most certain mode of making people content with us is to make them content with themselves.”
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“A woman’s head is always influenced by her heart, but a man’s heart is always influenced by his head.”
Countess of Blessington, Irish novelist, epigrammist, wit, salon host
(1789 - 1849)
Marguerite Power Gardiner, Countess of Blessington, is variously referred to as the Countess of Blessington, Lady Marguerite Blessington, or Marguerite, Countess of Blessington.