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Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
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“[On her political writings:] It is, I confess, very possible that these my Labours may only be destined to line Trunks, or preserve roast Meat from too fierce a Fire; yet in that Shape I shall be useful to my Country.”
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“I have often observ'd the loudest Laughers to be the dullest Fellows in the Company.”
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“And when the long hours of our parting are past and we meet with champagne and a chicken at last ...”
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“Mrs. D. is resolved to marry the old greasy curate. She was always High Church to an excessive degree.”
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“At the age of forty she is very far from being cold and insensible: her fire may be covered with ashes, but it is not extinguished.”
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“I have never had any great esteem for the generality of the fair sex, and my only consolation for being of that gender has been the assurance it gave me of never being married to any one among them.”
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“The last wedding is that of Peg Pelham, and I think I have never seen so comfortable a prospect of happiness; according to all appearance she cannot fail of being a widow in six weeks at farthest, and accordingly she has been so good a housewife to line her wedding-clothes with black.”
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“'Tis the established custom [in Vienna] for every lady to have two husbands, one that bears the name, and another that performs the duties.”
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“Satire should, like a polish'd razor keen, / Wound with a touch, that's scarcely felt or seen.”
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“Thine is an oyster knife that hacks and hews — / The rage but not the talent to abuse.”
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“But the fruit that can fall without shaking, / Indeed is too mellow for me.”
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“Be plain in dress, and sober in your diet, / In short, my deary, kiss me! and be quiet.”
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“Solitude begets whimsies ...”
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“I am afraid we are little better than straws upon the water; we may flatter ourselves that we swim, when the current carries us along.”
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“... forgive what you can't excuse ... ”
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“Our sex's weakness you expose and blame, / Of every prating fop the common theme; / Yet from this weakness you suppose is due / Sublimer virtue than your Cato knew. / From whence is this unjust distinction shown? / Are we not formed with passions like your own? / Nature with equal fire our souls endued: / Our minds as lofty, and as warm our blood.”
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“The familiarities of the gaming-table contribute very much to the decay of politeness ... The pouts and quarrels that naturally arise from disputes must put an end to all complaisance, or even good will towards one another.”
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“... I despise the pleasure of pleasing people whom I despise ...”
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“... a man that is ashamed of passions that are natural and reasonable, is generally proud of those that are shameful and silly.”
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“No modest man ever did or ever will make his fortune.”
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“My health is so often impaired that I begin to be as weary of it as mending old lace; when it is patched in one place, it breaks out in another.”
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“... people never write calmly but when they write indifferently.”
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“Miserable is the fate of writers: if they are agreeable, they are offensive; and if dull, they starve.”
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“General notions are generally wrong.”
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“In short I will part with anything for you but you.”
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“You can be pleased with nothing when you are not pleased with yourself.”
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“... to be reasonable one should never complain but when one hopes redress.”
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“I have never in all my various travels seen but two sorts of people, and those very like one another; I mean men and women, who always have been and ever will be the same.”
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“There can be no situation in life in which the conversation of my dear sister will not administer some comfort to me.”
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“I am in perfect health, and hear it said I look better than ever I did in my life, which is one of those lies one is always glad to hear.”
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“Making verses is almost as common as taking snuff, and God can tell what miserable stuff people carry about in their pockets, and offer to all their acquaintances, and you know one cannot refuse reading and taking a pinch.”
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“It was formerly a terrifying view to me that I should one day be an old woman. I now find that Nature has provided pleasures for every state.”
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“No entertainment is so cheap as reading, nor any pleasure so lasting.”
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“True knowledge consists in knowing things, not words.”
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“Remember my unalterable maxim, where we love, we have always something to say ...”
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“Gardening is certainly the next amusement to reading.”
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“... as the world is, and will be, 'tis a sort of duty to be rich, that it may be in in one's power to do good ...”
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“How many thousands ... earnestly seeking what they do not want, while they neglect the real blessings in their possession — I mean the innocent gratification of their senses, which is all we can properly call our own.”
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“As I ... have always (at least from fifteen) thought the reputation of learning a misfortune to a woman, I was resolved to believe that these stories were not meant at me ...”
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“My dear Smollett ... disgraces his talent by writing those stupid romances called history.”
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“... one would suffer a great deal to be happy.”
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“... Nature is indeed a specious ward, nay, there is a great deal in it if it is properly understood and applied, but I cannot bear to hear people using it to justify what common sense must disavow. Is not Nature modifed by art in many things? Was it not designed to be so? And is it not happy for human society that it is so? Would you like to see your husband let his beard grow, until he would be obliged to put the end of it in his pocket, because this beard is the gift of Nature?”
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“It has all been very interesting.”
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“I believe more follies are committed out of complaisance to the world, than in following our own inclinations — Nature is seldom in the wrong, custom always ...”
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“Tis a Maxim with me to be young as long as one can. There is nothing can pay one for that invaluable ignorance which is the companion of youth, those sanguine groundlesse Hopes, and that lively vanity which makes all the Happinesse of Life. To my extreme Mortification I grow wiser every day ...”
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“He left a world he was weary of with the cool indifference you quit a dirty inn, to continue your journey to a place where you hope for better accommodation.”
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“... if twas the fashion to go naked, the face would be hardly observ'd.”
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“I give my selfe sometimes admirable advice but I am incapable of taking it.”
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“The knowledge of Numbers is one of the chief distinctions between us and Brutes.”
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“No body can deny but Religion is a comfort to the distress'd, a Cordial to the Sick, and sometimes a restraint on the wicked; therefore whoever would argue or laugh it out of the World without giving some equivalent for it ought to be treated as a common Enemy.”
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“People are never so near playing the Fool as when they think themselves wise.”
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“Civility costs nothing, and buys everything.”
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“It is eleven Year since I have seen my Figure in a Glass. The last Refflection I saw there was so disagreable, I resolv'd to spare my selfe such mortifications for the Future ...”
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“ Whatever is clearly expressed is well wrote ...”
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“People wish their enemies dead — but I do not; I say give them the gout, give them the stone!”
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“A soldier worthy of the name he bears, / As brave and senseless as the sword he wears. ”
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“Men are vile inconstant toads.”
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“It's all been very interesting.”
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, English letterwriter, society figure, poet, traveler
(1689 - 1762)
Born: Lady Mary Pierrepont. She also published at least one book as “Sophia, A Person of Quality” (see quotations under that name).