Top 80 Quotes & Sayings by Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of Blessington - Page 2

Many minds that have withstood the most severe trials have been broken down by a succession of ignoble cares.

Pleasure is like a cordial - a little of it is not injurious, but too much destroys.

Heaven sends us misfortunes as a moral tonic.

A man should never boast of his courage, nor a woman of her virtue, lest their doing so should be the cause of calling their possession of them into question.

Bores: People who talk of themselves, when you are thinking only of yourself.

A poor man defended himself when charged with stealing food to appease the cravings of hunger, saying, the cries of the stomach silenced those of the conscience.

It is a sad thing to look at happiness only through another's eyes.

Life would be as insupportable without the prospect of death, as it would be without sleep.

Calumny is the offspring of Envy.

There are some chagrins of the heart which a friend ought to try to console without betraying a knowledge of their existence, as there are physical maladies which a physician ought to seek to heal without letting the sufferer know that he has discovered their extent.

The infirmities of genius are often mistaken for its privileges.

Despotism subjects a nation to one tyrant; democracy, to many.

You were wise not to waste years in a lawsuit ... he who commences a suit resembles him who plants a palm-tree which he will not live to see flourish.

Superstition is but the fear of belief.

Men who would persecute others for religious opinions, prove the errors of their own.

A beautiful woman without fixed principles may be likened to those fair but rootless flowers which float in streams, driven by every breeze.

Those can most easily dispense with society who are the most calculated to adorn it; they only are dependent on it who possess no mental resources, for though they bring nothing to the general mart, like beggars, they are too poor to stay at home.

Thoughts come maimed and plucked of plumage from the lips, which, from the pea, in the silence of your own leisure and study, would be born with far more beauty.

To amend mankind, moralists should show them man, not as he is, but as he ought to be.

The vices of the rich and great are mistaken for error; and those of the poor and lowly, for crimes.