Mary Wortley Montagu
Mary Wortley Montagu
Lady Mary Wortley Montaguwas an English aristocrat, letter writer and poet. Lady Mary is today chiefly remembered for her letters, particularly her letters from travels to the Ottoman Empire, as wife to the British ambassador to Turkey, which have been described by Billie Melman as "the very first example of a secular work by a woman about the Muslim Orient". Aside from her writing, Lady Mary is also known for introducing and advocating for smallpox inoculation to Britain after her...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionWriter
Date of Birth26 May 1689
Mary Wortley Montagu quotes about
Satire should, like a polished razor keen, Wound with a touch that's scarcely felt or seen.
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.
I am patriot enough to take pains to bring this usefull invention into fashion in England, and I should not fail to write to some of our Doctors very particularly about it, if I knew anyone of 'em that I thought had Virtue enough to destroy such a considerable branch of Revenue for the good of Mankind, but that Distemper is too beneficial to them not to expose to all their Resentment the hardy wight that should undertake to put an end to it.
There can be no situation in life in which the conversation of my dear sister will not administer some comfort to me.
We travellers are in very hard circumstances. If we say nothing but what has been said before us, we are dull and have observed nothing. If we tell anything new, we are laughed at as fabulous and romantic.
to be reasonable one should never complain but when one hopes redress.
Miserable is the fate of writers: if they are agreeable, they are offensive; and if dull, they starve.
Whatever is clearly expressed is well wrote.
Civility cost nothing.
It's in no way my interest (according to the common acceptance of that word) to convince the world of their errors; that is, I shall get nothing from it but the private satisfaction of having done good to mankind, and I know nobody that reckons that satisfaction any part of their interest.
I have never had any great esteem for the generality of the fair sex, and my only consolation for being of that gender has been the assurance it gave me of never being married to any one among them.
Making verses is almost as common as taking snuff, and God can tell what miserable stuff people carry about in their pockets, and offer to all their acquaintances, and you know one cannot refuse reading and taking a pinch.
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.
My dear Smollett ... disgraces his talent by writing those stupid romances called history.