Mary Wortley Montagu Quotes
An English aristocrat and writer.
(1689 - 1762)
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But the fruit that can fall without shaking indeed is too mellow for me.
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Civility costs nothing, and buys everything.
[Manners]
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Conscience is justice's best minister. It threatens, promises, rewards, and punishes, and keeps all under its control. - The busy must attend to its remonstrances; the most powerful submit to its reproof, and the angry endure its up-braidings. - While conscience is our friend, all is peace; but if once offended, farewell to the tranquil mind.
[Conscience]
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I am charmed with many points of the Turkish law; when proved the authors of any notorious falsehood, they are burned on the forehead with a hot iron.
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I don't say 'Tis impossible for an impudent man not to rise in the world, but a moderate merit with a large share of impudence is more probable to be advanced than the greatest qualifications without it.
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I give myself, sometimes, admirable advice, but I am incapable of taking it.
[Advice]
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I hate the noise and hurry inseparable from great Estates and Titles, and look upon both as blessings that ought only to be given to fools, for 'Tis only to them that they are blessings.
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I prefer liberty to chains of diamonds.
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In short I will part with anything for you but you.
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Life is too short for a long story.
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No entertainment is so cheap as reading, nor any pleasure so lasting.
[Reading]
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No modest man ever did or ever will make a fortune.
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Nobody can deny but religion is a comfort to the distressed, 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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Nobody should trust their virtue with necessity, the force of which is never known till it is felt, and it is therefore one of the first duties to avoid the temptation of it.
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People commonly educate their children as they build their houses, according to some plan they think beautiful, without considering whether it is suited to the purposes for which they are designed.
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Prudent people are very happy; 'tis an exceeding fine thing, that's certain, but I was born without it, and shall retain to my day of Death the Humour of saying what I think.
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Satire should, like a polished razor, keen, wound with a touch that is scarcely felt or seen.
[Satire]
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Solitude begets whimsies.
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The fruit that can fall without shaking, indeed is too mellow for me.
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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.
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