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Dorothy Osborne

  • “He loves her, I think, at the ordinary rate of husbands ...”

    • Dorothy Osborne,
    • on her brother and sister-in-law, in Sir Edward Abbey Perry, ed., Letters From Dorothy Osborne to Sir William Temple 1652-54 ()

  • “What an age do we live in, when 'tis a miracle if in ten couples that are married, two of them live so as not to publish to the world that they cannot agree.”

    • Dorothy Osborne,
    • in Sir Edward Abbey Perry, ed., Letters From Dorothy Osborne to Sir William Temple 1652-54 ()

  • “I find so many things to fear and so few to hope ...”

    • Dorothy Osborne,
    • in Sir Edward Abbey Perry, ed., Letters From Dorothy Osborne to Sir William Temple 1652-54 ()

  • “All letters, methinks, should be free and easy as one's discourse, not studied, as an oration, nor made up of hard words like a charm ...”

    • Dorothy Osborne,
    • 1653, in G.C. Moore Smith, Letters of Dorothy Osborne to William Temple ()

  • “'Tis an admirable thing to see how some people will labour to find out terms that may obscure a plain sense, like a gentleman I knew, who would never say 'the weather grew cold,' but that 'winter begins to salute us.' I have no patience for such coxcombs ...”

    • Dorothy Osborne,
    • 1653, in G.C. Moore Smith, Letters of Dorothy Osborne to William Temple ()

  • “... I do not know that ever I desired anything earnestly in my life but 'twas denied me, and I am many times afraid to wish a thing merely lest my fortune should take that occasion to use me ill.”

    • Dorothy Osborne,
    • 1652, in G.C. Moore Smith, Letters of Dorothy Osborne to William Temple ()

  • “... surfeits kill more than fasting does ...”

    • Dorothy Osborne,
    • 1653, in G.C. Moore Smith, Letters of Dorothy Osborne to William Temple ()

  • “Will the kindness of this letter excuse the shortness of it?”

    • Dorothy Osborne,
    • 1653, in G.C. Moore Smith, Letters of Dorothy Osborne to William Temple ()

  • “To marry for love were no reproachful thing if we did not see that of ten thousand couples that do it, hardly one can be brought for an example that it may be done and not repented afterwards ...”

    • Dorothy Osborne,
    • 1653, in G.C. Moore Smith, Letters of Dorothy Osborne to William Temple ()

Dorothy Osborne, English writer

(1627 - 1695)

Full name, Dorothy Osborne, Lady Temple.