Dorothy Osborne Quotes

9 Sourced Quotes

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
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
About six or seven o'clock, I walk out into a common that lies hard by the house, where a great many young wenches keep sheep and cows and sit in the shade singing of ballads…I talk to them, and find they want nothing to make them the happiest people in the world, but the knowledge that they are so.

Dorothy Osborne
Dr Taylor…says there is a great advantage to be gained in resigning up one's will to the command of another, because the same action which in itself is wholly indifferent if done upon our own choice, becomes an act of duty and religion if done in obedience to the command of any person whom nature, the laws, or our selves have given a power over us.

Dorothy Osborne
He loves her, I think, at the ordinary rate of husbands...

Dorothy Osborne
I do not see that it puts any value upon men when women marry them for love (as they term it); 'tis not their merit but our folly that is always presumed to cause it, and would it be any advantage to you to have your wife thought an indiscreet person?

Dorothy Osborne
'Tis much easier sure to get a good fortune than a good husband, but whosoever marries without any consideration of fortune shall never be allowed to do it out of so reasonable an apprehension.

Dorothy Osborne
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
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