Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of Blessington Quotes

Tears may be dried up, but the heart - never.

Memory seldom fails when its office is to show us the tombs of our buried hopes.

Heaven sends us misfortunes as a moral tonic.

Happiness is a rare plant that seldom takes root on earth-few ever enjoyed it, except for a brief period; the search after it is rarely rewarded by the discovery, but there is an admirable substitute for it... a contented spirit.

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

The difference between weakness and wickedness is much less than people suppose; and the consequences are nearly always the same.

Haste is always ungraceful.

Friends are the thermometer by which we may judge the temperature of our fortunes.

Flowers are the bright remembrances of youth; they waft us back, with their bland odorous breath, the joyous hours that only young life knows, ere we have learnt that this fair earth hides graves.

Conversation is the legs on which thought walks; and writing, the wings by which it flies.

Talent, like beauty, to be pardoned, must be obscure and unostentatious.

The chief prerequisite for a escort is to have a flexible conscience and an inflexible politeness.

To appear rich, we become poor.

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

Women excel more in literary judgment than in literary production,--they are better critics than authors.

Mediocrity is beneath a brave soul.

Prejudices are the chains forged by ignorance to keep men apart.

Religion converts despair, which destroys, into resignation, which submits.

[His mind] was like a volcano, full of fire and wealth, sometimes calm, often dazzling and playful, but ever threatening. It ran swift as the lightning from one subject to another, and occasionally burst forth in passionate throes of intellect, nearly allied to madness.

Praise is the only gift for which people are really grateful.

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.

Genius is the gold in the mine, talent is the miner who works and brings it out.

Sure there's different roads from this to Dungarvan* - some thinks one road pleasanter, and some think another; wouldn't it be mighty foolish to quarrel for this? - and sure isn't it twice worse to thry to interfere with people for choosing the road they like best to heaven?

A woman's head is always influenced by her heart, but a man's heart is always influenced by his head.

Tears fell from my eyes - yes, weak and foolish as it now appears to me, I wept for my departed youth; and for that beauty of which the faithful mirror too plainly assured me, no remnant existed.

We are more prone to murmur at the punishment of our faults than to lament them.

Society seldom forgives those who have discovered the emptiness of its pleasures, and who can live independent of it and them.

In France, a woman may forget that she is neither young nor handsome; for the absence of these claims to attention does not expose her to be neglected by the male sex.

Arles is certainly one of the most interesting towns I have ever seen, whether viewed as a place remarkable for the objects of antiquity it contains, or for the primitive manners of its inhabitants and its picturesque appearance.

Happiness consists not in having much, but in being content with little.

Reason dissipates the illusions of life, but does not console us for their departure.

There is no knowledge for which so great a price is paid as a knowledge of the world; and no one ever became an adept in it except at the expense of a hardened or a wounded heart.

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

Spring is the season of hope, and autumn is that of memory.

There are no persons capable of stooping so low as those who desire to rise in the world.

Calumny is the offspring of Envy.

Men are capable of making great sacrifices, who are not willing to make the lesser ones, on which so much of the happiness of life depends. The great sacrifices are seldom called for, but the minor ones are in daily requisition; and the making them with cheerfulness and grace enhances their value.

He who fears not, is to be feared.

Superstition is but the fear of belief.

Those who are formed to win general admiration are seldom calculated to bestow individual happiness.

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

Satire, like conscience, reminds us of what we often wish to forget.

The future: A consolation for those who have no other.