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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.

Mary Wortley Montagu

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Mary Wortley Montagu
Age: 73 †
Born: 1689
Born: January 1
Died: 1762
Died: August 21
Editor
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Playwright
Poet
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Lady Mary Pierrepont
Mary Pierrepont
Mary Wortley Montagu
Without
Humour
Thing
Fine
Think
Saying
Thinking
Shall
People
Happy
Exceeding
Born
Prudent
Death
Retain
Certain
Prudence

More quotes by Mary Wortley Montagu

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No entertainment is so cheap as reading, nor any pleasure so lasting.
Mary Wortley Montagu
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Making verses is almost as common as taking snuff, and God can tell what miserable stuff people carry about in their pockets, and offer to all their acquaintances, and you know one cannot refuse reading and taking a pinch.
Mary Wortley Montagu
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A propos of Distempers, I am going to tell you a thing that I am sure will make you wish your selfe here. The Small Pox so fatal and so general amongst us is here entirely harmless by the invention of engrafting (which is the term they give it). There is a set of old Women who make it their business to perform the Operation.
Mary Wortley Montagu
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My chief study all my life has been to lighten misfortunes and multiply pleasures, as far as human nature can.
Mary Wortley Montagu
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We are apt to consider Shakespeare only as a poet but he was certainly one of the greatest moral philosophers that ever lived.
Mary Wortley Montagu
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The familiarities of the gaming-table contribute very much to the decay of politeness ... The pouts and quarrels that naturally arise from disputes must put an end to all complaisance, or even good will towards one another.
Mary Wortley Montagu
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... if it were the fashion to go naked, the face would be hardly observed.
Mary Wortley Montagu
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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.
Mary Wortley Montagu
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I am afraid we are little better than straws upon the water we may flatter ourselves that we swim, when the current carries us along.
Mary Wortley Montagu
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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.
Mary Wortley Montagu
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A woman, till five-and-thirty, is only looked upon as a raw girl, and can possibly make no noise in the world till about forty.
Mary Wortley Montagu
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Copiousness of words, however ranged, is always false eloquence, though it will ever impose on some sort of understandings.
Mary Wortley Montagu
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Be plain in dress, and sober in your diet In short, my deary, kiss me, and be quiet.
Mary Wortley Montagu
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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.
Mary Wortley Montagu
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I despise the pleasure of pleasing people that I despise.
Mary Wortley Montagu
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Take back the beauty and wit you bestow upon me leave me my own mediocrity of agreeableness and genius, but leave me also my sincerity, my constancy, and my plain dealing 'Tis all I have to recommend me to the esteem either of others or myself.
Mary Wortley Montagu
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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.
Mary Wortley Montagu
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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.
Mary Wortley Montagu
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Satire should, like a polished razor keen, Wound with a touch that's scarcely felt or seen.
Mary Wortley Montagu
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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.
Mary Wortley Montagu