Top 12 Quotes by Mary Collyer

prayer must be, in its own nature, absurd and impertinent.

prayer must be, in its own nature, absurd and impertinent.

Prayer, Absurd

Mary Collyer (1749). “Felicia To Charlotte: Being Letters From A Young Lady in the Country, To Her Friend in Town : Containing A Series of the Most Interesting Events, Interspersed with Moral Reflections ...”, p.59

Virtue is the music of the soul, the harmony of the passions; it is the order, the symmetry, the interior beauty of the mind; the source of the truest pleasures, the fountain of the sublimest and most perfect happiness.

Mary Collyer

Passion, Order, Perfect

I am to consider the many advantages arising from a frequent use of oaths, curses, and imprecations. In the first place, this genteel accomplishment is a wonderful help to discourse; as it supplies the want of good sense, learning, and eloquence. The illiterate and stupid, by the help of oaths, become orators; and he, whose wretched intellects would not permit him to utter a coherent sentence, by this easy practice, excites the laughter, and fixes the attention, of a brilliant and joyous circle.

Mary Collyer

Laughter, Stupid, Practice

swearing is, as I have said, learning to the ignorant, eloquence to the blockhead, vivacity to the stupid, and wit to the coxcomb.

Mary Collyer

Stupid, Ignorant, Said

Mary Collyer (1749). “Felicia To Charlotte: Being Letters From A Young Lady in the Country, To Her Friend in Town : Containing A Series of the Most Interesting Events, Interspersed with Moral Reflections ...”, p.203

... those, who from an immoderate and false self-love, study to keep their humanity under, always take care, for their own sakes, to represent poverty to themselves, as something ridiculous, mean, and contemptible.

Mary Collyer

Mean, Self, Humanity

I am strangely addicted to the writing of long letters, which, I am afraid, tire you; and for the future, I believe, I must be less communicative, in order to be less troublesome.

Mary Collyer

Believe, Writing, Order

Mary Collyer (1749). “Felicia To Charlotte: Being Letters From A Young Lady in the Country, To Her Friend in Town : Containing A Series of the Most Interesting Events, Interspersed with Moral Reflections ...”, p.255

Avarice, with all its black attendants, is confessedly a crime of old age, and seldom arrives at maturity till accompanied with gray hairs.

Mary Collyer

Maturity, Hair, Greed

How tedious is time, when his wings are loaded with expectation!

Mary Collyer

Time, Wings, Expectations

Mary Collyer (1749). “Felicia To Charlotte: Being Letters From A Young Lady in the Country, To Her Friend in Town : Containing A Series of the Most Interesting Events, Interspersed with Moral Reflections ...”, p.286

The most savage and voracious animal never kills to increase his wealth, or open a way to grandeur. It slays to satisfy his hunger, or in a natural defense of his own life, or of those whom he is prompted by instinct to preserve.

Mary Collyer

Animal, Savages, Defense

Oaths and curses are a proof of a most heroic courage, at least in appearance, which answers the same end.

Mary Collyer

Answers, Heroic, Appearance

Mary Collyer (1749). “Felicia To Charlotte: Being Letters From A Young Lady in the Country, To Her Friend in Town : Containing A Series of the Most Interesting Events, Interspersed with Moral Reflections ...”, p.203