Lady Mary Wortley Montagu Quotes

77 Sourced Quotes

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.

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
People are never so near playing the fool as when they think themselves wise.

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
I have all my life been on my guard against the information conveyed by the sense of hearing -- it being one of my earliest observations, the universal inclination of humankind is to be led by the ears, and I am sometimes apt to imagine that they are given to men as they are to pitchers, purposely that they may be carried about by them.

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
If it were the fashion to go naked, the face would be hardly observed.

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
My dear Smollett... disgraces his talent by writing those stupid romances called history.

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
I am patriot enough to take pains to bring this usefull invention into fashion in England, and I should not fail to write to some of our Doctors very particularly about it, if I knew anyone of 'em that I thought had Virtue enough to destroy such a considerable branch of Revenue for the good of Mankind, but that Distemper is too beneficial to them not to expose to all their Resentment the hardy wight that should undertake to put an end to it.

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
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.

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
The use of knowledge in our sex (beside the amusement of solitude) is to moderate the passions and learn to be contented with a small expense, which are the certain effects of a studious life and, it may be, preferable even to that fame which men have engrossed to themselves and will not suffer us to share.

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
The screech-owl, with ill-boding cry, Portends strange things, old women say; Stops every fool that passes by, And frights the school-boy from his play.

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
It is the common error of builders and parents to follow some plan they think beautiful (and perhaps is so) without considering that nothing is beautiful that is misplaced.

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
Copiousness of words, however ranged, is always false eloquence, though it will ever impose on some sort of understandings.

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
The pious farmer, who ne'er misses pray'rs, With patience suffers unexpected rain; He blesses Heav'n for what its bounty spares, And sees, resign'd, a crop of blighted grain. But, spite of sermons, farmers would blaspheme, If a star fell to set their thatch on flame.

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
Nature has not placed us in an inferior rank to men, no more than the females of other animals, where we see no distinction of capacity, though I am persuaded if there was a commonwealth of rational horses... it would be an established maxim amongst them that a mare could not be taught to pace.

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
I know a love may be revived which absence, inconstancy, or even infidelity has extinguished, but there is no returning from a dTgovt given by satiety.

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
As I approach a second childhood, I endeavor to enter into the pleasures of it.

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
We are educated in the grossest ignorance, and no art omitted to stifle our natural reason; if some few get above their nurses instructions, our knowledge must rest concealed and be as useless to the world as gold in the mine.

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
The pretty fellows you speak of, I own entertain me sometimes, but is it impossible to be diverted with what one despises? I can laugh at a puppet show, at the same time I know there is nothing in it worth my attention or regard.

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
Satire should, like a polished razor keen,
Wound with a touch that's scarcely felt or seen.

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
I despise the pleasure of pleasing people whom I despise...

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
You can be pleased with nothing when you are not pleased with yourself.

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
To be reasonable one should never complain but when one hopes redress.

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
In chains and darkness, wherefore should I stay,
And mourn in prison, while I keep the key?

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
We travellers are in very hard circumstances. If we say nothing but what has been said before us, we are dull and have observed nothing. If we tell anything new, we are laughed at as fabulous and romantic.

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
I regard almost all quarrels of princes on the same footing, and I see nothing that marks man's unreason so positively as war. Indeed, what folly to kill one another for interests often imaginary, and always for the pleasure of persons who do not think themselves even obliged to those who sacrifice themselves for them!

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
I wish you would moderate that fondness you have for your children. I do not mean you should abate any part of your care, or not do your duty to them in its utmost extent; but I would have you early prepare yourself for disappointments, which are heavy in proportion to their being surprising.

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu