Lady Mary Wortley Montagu

'Tis a maxim with me to be young as long as one can: there is nothing can pay one for that invaluable ignorance which is the companion of youth; those sanguine groundless hopes, and that lively vanity, which make all the happiness of life. To my extreme mortification I grow wiser every day.

You can be pleased with nothing if you are not pleased with yourself.

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

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

I despise the pleasure of pleasing people that I despise.

But the fruit that can fall without shaking Indeed is too mellow for me.

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.

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

Civility costs nothing and buys everything.

General notions are generally wrong.