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

Civility costs nothing, and buys everything.

Mary Wortley Montagu

civility cost behaviour

People wish their enemies dead - but I do not; I say give them the gout, give them the stone!

Mary Wortley Montagu

giving people enemy

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

pleasure one-day views

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

fate swim water

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

Mary Wortley Montagu

human-nature pleasure study

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

mediocrity genius beauty

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

Mary Wortley Montagu

library reading book

There is no remedy so easy as books, which if they do not give cheerfulness, at least restore quiet to the most troubled mind.

Mary Wortley Montagu

writing giving book

I prefer liberty to chains of diamonds.

Mary Wortley Montagu

women liberty memorable

Gardening is certainly the next amusement to reading.

Mary Wortley Montagu

amusement gardening reading

We are no more free agents than the queen of clubs when she victoriously takes prisoner the knave of hearts.

Mary Wortley Montagu

destiny queens heart

Whoever will cultivate their own mind will find full employment. Every virtue does not only require great care in the planting, but as much daily solicitude in cherishing as exotic fruits and flowers; the vices and passions (which I am afraid are the natural product of the soil) demand perpetual weeding. Add to this the search after knowledge. . . and the longest life is too short.

Mary Wortley Montagu

weed flower life

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

toil rose philosophy

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

philosopher moral poet

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

Mary Wortley Montagu

inspirational peace funny

People are never so near playing the fool as when they think themselves wise.

Mary Wortley Montagu

wise people thinking

Miserable is the fate of writers: if they are agreeable, they are offensive; and if dull, they starve.

Mary Wortley Montagu

offensive fate dull

It's all been very interesting.

Mary Wortley Montagu

last-words dying interesting

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

women ignorance art

Solitude begets whimsies.

Mary Wortley Montagu

whimsy begets solitude