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Hester Lynch Piozzi
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“[Samuel] Johnson's conversation was by much too strong for a person accustomed to obsequiousness and flattery; it was mustard in a young child's mouth!”
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“Nothing is so fatiguing as the life of a wit ...”
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“... 'tis never for their wisdom that one loves the wisest, or for their wit that one loves the wittiest; 'tis for benevolence, and virtue, and honest fondness, one loves people; the other qualities make one proud of loving them too.”
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“The pleasures of intimacy in friendship depend far more on external circumstances than people of a sentimental turn of mind are willing to concede; and when constant companionship ceases to suit the convenience of both parties, the chances are that it will be dropped on the first favourable opportunity.”
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“... let dullness have its due: and remember that if life and conversation are happily compared to a bowl of punch, there must be more water in it than spirit, acid, or sugar.”
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“We look on those approaching the banks of a river all must cross, with ten times the interest they excited when dancing in the meadow.”
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“Friendship is far more delicate than love. Quarrels and fretful complaints are attractive in the last, offensive in the first. And the very things which heap fewel on the fire of ardent passion, choke and extinguish sober and true regard. On the other hand, time, which is sure to destroy that love of which half certainly depends on desire, is as sure to increase a friendship founded on talents, warm with esteem, and ambitious of success for the object of it.”
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“I think character never changes; the Acorn becomes an Oak, which is very little like an Acorn to be sure, but it never becomes an Ash ...”
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“... one should know the value of Life better than to pout any part of it away.”
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“No companion however wise, no friend however useful, can be to me what my mother has been: her image will long pursue my fancy; her voice for ever hang in my ears: may her precepts but sink into my heart!”
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“... I am perpetually bringing or losing babies, both very dreadful operations to me, and which tear mind and body both in pieces very cruelly.”
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“A physician can sometimes parry the scythe of death, but has no power over the sand in the hour-glass.”
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“If truth can be found in any sublunary science, numbers will produce it, for to that at last almost all other sciences refer for confirmation.”
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“... he loved to talk better than to hear, and to dispute better than to please ... people generally left the room with a high opinion of that gentleman's parts and a confirmed resolution to avoid his society.”
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“Miss Owen and Miss Burney asked me if I had never been in love; 'with myself,' said I, 'and most passionately.' When any man likes me I never am surprised, for I think how should he help it? When any man does not like me, I think him a blockhead, and there's an end of the matter.”
Hester Lynch Piozzi, English memoirist
(1741 - 1821)
Full name: Hester Lynch Salusbury Thrale Piozzi.