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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
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Lady Mary Pierrepont
Mary Pierrepont
Mary Wortley Montagu
Fool
Boys
Screech
Strange
Owl
School
Fright
Women
Stops
Play
Passes
Every
Ill
Things
Cry
More quotes by Mary Wortley Montagu
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
Only a mother knows a mother's fondness.
Mary Wortley Montagu
In short I will part with anything for you but you.
Mary Wortley Montagu
I despise the pleasure of pleasing people that I despise.
Mary Wortley Montagu
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
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
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
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.
Mary Wortley Montagu
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.
Mary Wortley Montagu
No entertainment is so cheap as reading, nor any pleasure so lasting. She will not want new fashions nor regret the loss of expensive diversions or variety of company if she can be amused with an author in her closet.
Mary Wortley Montagu
Whatever is clearly expressed is well wrote.
Mary Wortley Montagu
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.
Mary Wortley Montagu
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
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
My chief study all my life has been to lighten misfortunes and multiply pleasures, as far as human nature can.
Mary Wortley Montagu
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.
Mary Wortley Montagu
Satire should, like a polished razor keen, Wound with a touch that's scarcely felt or seen.
Mary Wortley Montagu
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
Life is too short for a long story
Mary Wortley Montagu
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
