Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of Blessington Quotes

One of the most marked characteristics of our day is a reckless neglect of principles, and a rigid adherence to their semblance.

Borrowed thoughts, like borrowed money, only show the poverty of the borrower.

Wit is the lightning of the mind, reason the sunshine, and reflection the moonlight.

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.

We have a reading, a talking, and a writing public. When shall we have a thinking?

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

Imagination, which is the Eldorado of the poet and of the novel-writer, often proves the most pernicious gift to the individuals who compose the talkers instead of the writers in society.

Superstition is only the fear of belief, while religion is the confidence.

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

Modern historians are all would-be philosophers; who, instead of relating facts as they occurred, give us their version, or rather perversions of them, always colored by their political prejudices, or distorted to establish some theory . . .

Only vain people wage war against the vanity of others.

Society punishes not the vices of its members, but their detection.

alas! there is no casting anchor in the stream of time!

When we find that we are not liked, we assert that we are not understood; when probably the dislike we have excited proceeds from our being too fully comprehended.

A German writer observes: "The noblest characters only show themselves in their real light. All others act comedy with their fellow-men even unto the grave.

The most certain mode of making people content with us is to make them content with themselves.

There is no cosmetic like happiness

When we bring back with us the objects most dear, and find those we left unchanged, we are tempted to doubt the lapse of time; but one link in the chain of affection broken, and every thing seems altered.

I see little alteration at Lyons since I formerly passed through it. Its manufactories are, nevertheless, flourishing, though less improvement than could be expected is visible in the external aspect of the place.

We never respect those who amuse us, however we may smile at their comic powers

Love matches are made by people who are content, for a month of honey, to condemn themselves to a life of vinegar.

People seem to lose all respect for the past; events succeed each other with such velocity that the most remarkable one of a few years gone by, is no more remembered than if centuries had closed over it.

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

The infirmities of genius are often mistaken for its privileges.

Our weaknesses are the indigenous produce of our characters; but our strength is the forced fruit.

When the sun shines on you, you see your friends. It requires sunshine to be seen by them to advantage!

There is no magician like love.

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

Listeners beware, for ye are doomed never to hear good of yourselves.

Love and enthusiasm are always ridiculous, when not reciprocated by their objects.

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.

A profound knowledge of life is the least enviable of all species of knowledge, because it can only be acquired by trials that make us regret the loss of our ignorance.

Mountains appear more lofty the nearer they are approached, but great men resemble them not in this particular.

Grief is, of all the passions, the one that is the most ingenious and indefatigable in finding food for its own subsistence.

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.

He who would remain honest ought to keep away want.

... I never will allow myself to form an ideal of any person I desire to see, for disappointment never fails to ensue.

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

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.

Flattery, if judiciously administered, is always acceptable.

Love in France is a comedy; in England a tragedy; in Italy an opera seria; and in Germany a melodrama.

Wit lives in the present, but genius survives the future.

Here Fashion is a despot, and no one dreams of evading its dictates.

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.

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

People are always willing to follow advice when it accords with their own wishes.

Yes, the meeting of dear friends atones for the regret of separation; and like it so much enhances affection, that after absence one wonders how one has been able to stay away from them so long.

Some people are capable of making great sacrifices, but few are capable of concealing how much the effort has cost them; and it is this concealment that constitutes their value.