Quotes from Mary Wortley Montagu

In short I will part with anything for you but you.

No modest man ever did or ever will make a fortune.

Men are vile inconstant toads.

Only a mother knows a mother's fondness.

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.

My chief study all my life has been to lighten misfortunes and multiply pleasures, as far as human nature can.

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.

While conscience is our friend, all is at peace; however once it is offended, farewell to a tranquil mind.

The ultimate end of your education was to make you a good wife.

A face is too slight a foundation for happiness.

one would suffer a great deal to be happy.

My dear Smollett ... disgraces his talent by writing those stupid romances called history.

'Tis a sort of duty to be rich, that it may be in one's power to do good, riches being another word for power.

Nobody can deny but religion is a comfort to the distressed, a cordial to the sick, and sometimes a restraint on the wicked.

The most romantic region of every country is that where the mountains unite themselves with the plains or lowlands.

True knowledge consists in knowing things, not words.

The knowledge of numbers is one of the chief distinctions between us and the brutes.

There is nothing can pay one for that invaluable ignorance which is the companion of youth, those sanguine groundless hopes, and that lively vanity which makes all the happiness of life.

There can be no situation in life in which the conversation of my dear sister will not administer some comfort to me.

Nobody can deny but religion is a comfort to the distressed, a cordial to the sick, and sometimes a restraint on the wicked; therefore whoever would argue or laugh it out of the world without giving some equivalent for it ought to be treated as a common enemy.

I am in perfect health, and hear it said I look better than ever I did in my life, which is one of those lies one is always glad to hear.

No entertainment is so cheap as reading, nor any pleasure so lasting.

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.

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.