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
To always be loved one must ever be agreeable.
And we meet, with champagne and a chicken, at last.
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.
The most romantic region of every country is that where the mountains unite themselves with the plains or lowlands.
One can never outlive one's vanity.
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.
to be reasonable one should never complain but when one hopes redress.
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.
Tis the established custom [in Vienna] for every lady to have two husbands, one that bears the name, and another that performs the duties.
My health is so often impaired that I begin to be as weary of it as mending old lace; when it is patched in one place, it breaks out in another.
people never write calmly but when they write indifferently.
I have often observ'd the loudest Laughers to be the dullest Fellows in the Company.
Men are vile inconstant toads.