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
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.
Miserable is the fate of writers: if they are agreeable, they are offensive; and if dull, they starve.
[On her political writings:] It is, I confess, very possible that these my Labours may only be destined to line Trunks, or preserve roast Meat from too fierce a Fire; yet in that Shape I shall be useful to my Country.
How many thousands ... earnestly seeking what they do not want, while they neglect the real blessings in their possession -- I mean the innocent gratification of their senses, which is all we can properly call our own.
Whatever is clearly expressed is well wrote.
Civility cost nothing.
The one thing that reconciles me to the fact of being a woman is the reflection that it delivers me from the necessity of being married to one.
We are apt to consider Shakespeare only as a poet; but he was certainly one of the greatest moral philosophers that ever lived.
Lord Bacon makes beauty to consist of grace and motion.
We have all our playthings. Happy are they who are contented with those they can obtain; those hours are spent in the wisest manner that can easiest shade the ills of life, and are the least productive of ill consequences.
It goes far towards reconciling me to being a woman, when I reflect that I am thus in no danger of ever marrying one.
As I approach a second childhood, I endeavor to enter into the pleasures of it.
Begin nothing without considering what the end may be.
Remember my unalterable maxim, "When we love, we always have something to say.