Mary Wortley Montagu

“General notions are generally wrong.”

“There is no cosmetic for beauty like happiness.”

“I am now got into a new world, where everything I see appears to me a change of scene.”

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

“But the fruit that can fall without shaking, is rather too mellow for me.”

“Satire should, like a polished razor keen, Wound with a touch that's scarcely felt or seen.”

“I give myself sometimes admirable advice, but I am incapable of taking it.”

“The vulgar are the only judges of vulgarity.”

“The library is my paradise.”

“My own sex, I hope, will pardon me, if I treat them with the freedom of a friend.”

“I am a lover of the cause of liberty and virtue.”

“If it was a crime to be wounded, the wicked would be the only sufferers.”

“I suppose we are all historians in our turn.”

“Civility costs nothing, and buys everything.”

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

“I am resolved to grow fat and look young till forty, and then slip out of the world with the first wrinkle and the reputation of five-and-twenty.”

“Wit should be used as a shield for defence, rather than as a sword to wound.”