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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.

Mary Wortley Montagu

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Mary Wortley Montagu
Age: 73 †
Born: 1689
Born: January 1
Died: 1762
Died: August 21
Editor
Explorer
Playwright
Poet
Writer
Lady Mary Pierrepont
Mary Pierrepont
Mary Wortley Montagu
Reason
Mine
Nurses
Must
Gold
Instructions
World
Ignorance
Concealed
Rest
Nurse
Knowledge
Instruction
Natural
Useless
Grossest
Art
Educated
Omitted
Women
Mines
Stifle

More quotes by 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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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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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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The most romantic region of every country is that where the mountains unite themselves with the plains or lowlands.
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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Muse, time has taught me that all metaphysical systems, even historical facts given as truths, are hardly that, so I amuse myself with more agreeable lies I no longer read anything but novels.
Mary Wortley Montagu
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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.
Mary Wortley Montagu
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It was formerly a terrifying view to me that I should one day be an old woman. I now find that Nature has provided pleasures for every state.
Mary Wortley Montagu
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General notions are generally wrong.
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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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 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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Remember my unalterable maxim, When we love, we always have something to say.
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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Lord Bacon makes beauty to consist of grace and motion.
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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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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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.
Mary Wortley Montagu
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I believe more follies are committed out of complaisance to the world, than in following our own inclinations.
Mary Wortley Montagu
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One can never outlive one's vanity.
Mary Wortley Montagu