Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Water
Carrie
Littles
Swim
Current
May
Currents
Better
Fate
Little
Afraid
Flatter
Along
Straws
Upon
Carries

More quotes by Mary Wortley Montagu

Image
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
Image
Remember my unalterable maxim, When we love, we always have something to say.
Mary Wortley Montagu
Image
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
Image
Let this great maxim be my virtue's guide,- In part she is to blame that has been tried: He comes too near that comes to be denied.
Mary Wortley Montagu
Image
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
Image
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
Image
I despise the pleasure of pleasing people that I despise.
Mary Wortley Montagu
Image
... if it were the fashion to go naked, the face would be hardly observed.
Mary Wortley Montagu
Image
To always be loved one must ever be agreeable.
Mary Wortley Montagu
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
people never write calmly but when they write indifferently.
Mary Wortley Montagu
Image
Be plain in dress, and sober in your diet In short, my deary, kiss me, and be quiet.
Mary Wortley Montagu
Image
Life is too short for a long story
Mary Wortley Montagu
Image
Lord Bacon makes beauty to consist of grace and motion.
Mary Wortley Montagu
Image
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
Image
As I approach a second childhood, I endeavor to enter into the pleasures of it.
Mary Wortley Montagu
Image
We should ask, not who is the most learned, but who is the best learned.
Mary Wortley Montagu
Image
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