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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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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
Given
Systems
Facts
Historical
Amuse
Anything
Lies
Agreeable
Even
Novel
Metaphysical
Time
Longer
Muse
Taught
Novels
Lying
Truths
Read
Hardly

More quotes by Mary Wortley Montagu

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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.
Mary Wortley Montagu
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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
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No modest man ever did or ever will make a fortune.
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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Life is too short for a long story
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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One can never outlive one's vanity.
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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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
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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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Whatever is clearly expressed is well wrote.
Mary Wortley Montagu
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Only a mother knows a mother's fondness.
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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No entertainment is so cheap as reading, nor any pleasure so lasting.
Mary Wortley Montagu
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Gardening is certainly the next amusement to reading.
Mary Wortley Montagu
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In short I will part with anything for you but you.
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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We are no more free agents than the queen of clubs when she victoriously takes prisoner the knave of hearts.
Mary Wortley Montagu
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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
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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