Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of Blessington Quotes - Page 3

He who would remain honest ought to keep away want.

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

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.

Haste is always ungraceful.

Mediocrity is beneath a brave soul.

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.

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.

Heaven sends us misfortunes as a moral tonic.

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.

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

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

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

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

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 fears not, is to be feared.

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

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?

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

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

Flattery, if judiciously administered, is always acceptable.

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

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

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.

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.