Well known throughout polite society for her wit and verse, English world traveller Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (May 15, 1689 - August 21, 1762) also worked to introduce the practice of inoculation against smallpox to the medical establishment of eighteenth-century Britain, despite their resistance to taking advice (Click here for full YourDictionary.com article.)
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A face is too slight a foundation for happiness.
A man that is ashamed of passions that are natural and reasonable is generally proud of those that are shameful and silly.
Be plain in dress, and sober in your diet;
In short, my deary, kiss
me and be quiet.
Civility costs nothing, and gains everything.
I despise the pleasure of pleasing people that I despise.
I enjoy vast delight in the folly of mankind; and, God be praised, that is an inexhaustible source of entertainment.
I give myself sometimes admirable advice, but I am incapable of taking it.
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.
Life is too short for a long story.
No entertainment is so cheap as reading, nor any pleasure so lasting.
No modest man ever did or ever will make a fortune.
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.
People are never so near playing the fool as when they think themselves wise.
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.
Philosophy is the toil which can never tire persons engaged in it. All ways are strewn with roses, and the farther you go, the more enchanting objects appear before you and invite you on.
Time has the same effect on the mind as on the face; the predominant passion and the strongest feature become more conspicuous from the others' retiring.
To be ever beloved, one must be ever agreeable.
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.
You can be pleased with nothing when you are not pleased with yourself.
There is nothing can pay one for that invaluable ignorance which is the companion of youth, those sanguine groundless hopes, and that lively vanity which makes all the happiness of life.
Nature is seldom in the wrong, custom always.
Whoever will cultivate their own mind will find full employment.
Solitude begets whimsies.
Categories: Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Quotes of the day
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