Top 21 Quotes & Sayings by Elizabeth Montagu

Explore popular quotes and sayings by a British writer Elizabeth Montagu.

Last updated on December 21, 2024.

Elizabeth Montagu was a British social reformer, patron of the arts, salonnière, literary critic and writer, who helped to organize and lead the Blue Stockings Society. Her parents were both from wealthy families with strong ties to the British peerage and learned life. She was sister to Sarah Scott, author of A Description of Millenium [sic] Hall and the Country Adjacent. She married Edward Montagu, a man with extensive landholdings, to become one of the richer women of her era. She devoted this fortune to fostering English and Scottish literature and to the relief of the poor.

British - Writer | October 2, 1718 - August 25, 1800

Source: Wikipedia

Wit in women is apt to have bad consequences; like a sword without a scabbard, it wounds the wearer and provokes assailants.

Elizabeth Montagu

To judge therefore of Shakespeare by Aristotle's rule is like trying a man by the Laws of one Country who acted under those of another.

Elizabeth Montagu

She kindly laments that I am not of the party, and to be sure I honour great ladies, and I admire great wits, but I am of the same opinion in regard to assemblies that is held concerning oysters, that they are never good in a month that has not the letter R in it.

Elizabeth Montagu

I endeavor to be wise when I cannot be merry, easy when I cannot be glad, content with what cannot be mended and patient when there be no redress.

Elizabeth Montagu

I never invite idiots to my house.

Elizabeth Montagu

It is very unreasonable of people to expect one should be at home, because one is in the house. Of all privileges, that of invisibility is the most valuable.

Elizabeth Montagu

Will an intelligent spectator not admire the prodigeous structures of Stone-Henge because he does not know by what law of mechanics they were raised?

Elizabeth Montagu

Our collection of men is very antique, they stand in my list thus: A man of sense, a little rusty, a beau a good deal the worse for wearing, a coxcomb extremely shattered, a pretty gentleman very insipid, a baronet very solemn, a squire very fat, a fop much affected, a barrister learned in Coke upon Littleton, but who knows nothing of `long ways for marry as will', an heir apparent, very awkward; which of these will cast a favourable eye upon me I don't know.

Elizabeth Montagu

it is more to my personal happiness and advantage to indulge the love and admiration of excellence, than to cherish a secret envy of it.

Elizabeth Montagu

I often think that those people are the happiest who know nothing at all of the world, and sitting in the little empire of the fireside, where there is no contention or cabal, think we are in a golden age of existance.

Elizabeth Montagu

You will find many a creature by earth, air, and water, that is more beautiful than a woman.

Elizabeth Montagu

Among many reasons for being stupid it may be urged, it is being like other people, and living like one's neighbours, and indeed without it, it may be difficult to love some neighbours as oneself: now seeing the necessity of being dull, you won't, I hope, take it amiss that you find me so.

Elizabeth Montagu

I always wish to find great virtues where there are great talents, and to love what I admire.

Elizabeth Montagu

I endeavor to drink deep of philosophy, and to be wise when I cannot be merry, easy when I cannot be glad, content with what cannot be mended, and patient where there is no redress. The mighty can do no more, and the wise seldom do as much. ... I am resolved to make the best of all circumstances around me, that this short life may not be half lost in pains ... Between the periods of birth and burial, I would fain insert a little happiness, a little pleasure, a little peace: to-day is ours, yesterday is past, and to-morrow may never come.

Elizabeth Montagu

Any wife will save you from purgatory, and a diligent one will secure heaven to you.

Elizabeth Montagu

The outrages of the powerful, the insolence of the rich, scorn of the proud, and malice of the uncharitable, all beating against the broken spirit of the unfortunate.

Elizabeth Montagu

The muses crown virtue when fortune refuses to do it.

Elizabeth Montagu

Few people know anything of the English history but what they learn from Shakespear; for our story is rather a tissue of personal adventures and catastrophes than a series of political events.

Elizabeth Montagu

I endeavor to be wise when I cannot be merry, easy when I cannot be glad, content with what cannot be mended, and patient when there be no redress.

Elizabeth Montagu