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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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Mary Wortley Montagu
Age: 73 †
Born: 1689
Born: January 1
Died: 1762
Died: August 21
Editor
Explorer
Playwright
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Lady Mary Pierrepont
Mary Pierrepont
Mary Wortley Montagu
Along
Straws
Upon
Carries
Water
Carrie
Littles
Swim
May
Current
Better
Currents
Little
Fate
Afraid
Flatter
More quotes by Mary Wortley Montagu
I despise the pleasure of pleasing people that I despise.
Mary Wortley Montagu
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.
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
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
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
One can never outlive one's vanity.
Mary Wortley Montagu
We should ask, not who is the most learned, but who is the best learned.
Mary Wortley Montagu
... if it were the fashion to go naked, the face would be hardly observed.
Mary Wortley Montagu
Nature has not placed us in an inferior rank to men, no more than the females of other animals, where we see no distinction of capacity, though I am persuaded if there was a commonwealth of rational horses... it would be an established maxim amongst them that a mare could not be taught to pace.
Mary Wortley Montagu
You can be pleased with nothing if you are not pleased with yourself.
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
It has all been most interesting.
Mary Wortley Montagu
I believe more follies are committed out of complaisance to the world, than in following our own inclinations.
Mary Wortley Montagu
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
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
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
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
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
It is the common error of builders and parents to follow some plan they think beautiful (and perhaps is so) without considering that nothing is beautiful that is misplaced.
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