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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

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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
Boys
Screech
Strange
Owl
School
Fright
Women
Stops
Play
Passes
Every
Ill
Things
Cry
Fool

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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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People are never so near playing the fool as when they think themselves wise.
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Lord Bacon makes beauty to consist of grace and motion.
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I believe more follies are committed out of complaisance to the world, than in following our own inclinations.
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In short I will part with anything for you but you.
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As I approach a second childhood, I endeavor to enter into the pleasures of it.
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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.
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Conscience is justice's best minister it threatens, promises, rewards, and punishes and keeps all under control the busy must attend to its remonstrances, the most powerful submit to its reproof, and the angry endure its upbraidings. While conscience is our friend all is peace but if once offended farewell the tranquil mind.
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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.
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Strictly speaking, there is but one real evil: I mean acute pain. All other complaints are so considerably diminished by time that it is plain the grief is owing to our passion, since the sensation of it vanishes when that is over.
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Life is too short for a long story
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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.
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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.
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General notions are generally wrong.
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Satire should, like a polished razor keen, Wound with a touch that's scarcely felt or seen.
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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 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.
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Begin nothing without considering what the end may be.
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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.
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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.
Mary Wortley Montagu