Miserable is the fate of writers: if they are agreeable, they are offensive; and if dull, they starve.
Mary Wortley MontaguWe are educated in the grossest ignorance, and no art omitted to stifle our natural reason; if some few get above their nurses instructions, our knowledge must rest concealed and be as useless to the world as gold in the mine.
Mary Wortley MontaguThe use of knowledge in our sex (beside the amusement of solitude) is to moderate the passions and learn to be contented with a small expense, which are the certain effects of a studious life and, it may be, preferable even to that fame which men have engrossed to themselves and will not suffer us to share.
Mary Wortley MontaguMy dear Smollett ... disgraces his talent by writing those stupid romances called history.
Mary Wortley Montagu