Literary Birthday – 1 September – Marguerite Gardiner

Marguerite Gardiner was born 1 September 1789, and died 4 June 1849.

Quotes

1. Genius is the gold in the mine, talent is the miner who works and brings it out.
2. Happiness consists not in having much, but in being content with little.
3. A woman’s head is always influenced by heart; but a man’s heart by his head.
4. Conversation is the legs on which thought walks; and writing, the wings by which it flies.
5. Some people are capable of making great sacrifices, but few are capable of concealing how much the effort has cost them.
6. Wit is the lightning of the mind, reason the sunshine, and reflection the moonlight.
7. The difference between weakness and wickedness is much less than people suppose; and the consequences are nearly always the same.
8. We never respect those who amuse us, however we may smile at their comic powers.
9. Talent, like beauty, to be pardoned, must be obscure and unostentatious.
10. Grief is, of all the passions, the one that is the most ingenious and indefatigable in finding food for its own subsistence.
11. We have a reading, a talking, and a writing public. When shall we have a thinking?
12. Our weaknesses are the indigenous produce of our characters; but our strength is the forced fruit.
13. There are no persons capable of stooping so low as those who desire to rise in the world.
14. Society punishes not the vices of its members, but their detection.
15. Spring is the season of hope, and autumn is that of memory.

Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of Blessington, was an Irish novelist, journalist, and literary hostess. She is the author of Conversations of Lord Byron with the Countess of Blessington.

Source for Image/ Source for quotes

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Maguerite,_Countess_of_Blessington.jpg

Thomas Lawrence, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

by Amanda Patterson

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