Women Born Before The 19th Century

"In a tête-à-tête we are never more interrupted than when we say nothing."

"Virtue and Love are two ogres: one must eat the other."

"It is the merit of those who praise that makes the value of the commendation."

"A woman would be in despair if nature had formed her as fashion makes her appear."

"I have seen more than one woman drown her honor in the clear water of diamonds."

"Besides, I had found a secret pleasure, during my confinement, from the perusal of good books, to which I had given myself up with a delight I never before experienced. I consider this as an obligation I owe to fortune, or, rather, to Divine Providence, in order to prepare me, by such efficacious means, to bear up against the misfortunes and calamities that awaited me. By tracing nature in the universal book which is opened to all mankind, I was led to the knowledge of the Divine Author. Science conducts us, step by step, through the whole range of creation, until we arrive, at length, at God. Misfortune prompts us to summon our utmost strength to oppose grief and recover tranquillity, until at length we find a powerful aid in the knowledge and love of God, whilst prosperity hurries us away until we are overwhelmed by our passions. My captivity and its consequent solitude afforded me the double advantage of exciting a passion for study, and an inclination for devotion, advantages I had never experienced during the vanities and splendour of my prosperity."

"Calumny spreads like an oil-spot: we endeavor to cleanse it, but the mark remains."

"Benevolence rejuvenates the heart, exercise, the memory, and remembrance, life."

"In love, great pleasures come very near great sorrows."

"For my part, I remained a close prisoner, without a visit from a single person, none of my most intimate friends daring to come near me, through the apprehension that such a step might prove injurious to their interests. Thus it is ever in Courts. Adversity is solitary, while prosperity dwells in a crowd; the object of persecution being sure to be shunned by his nearest friends and dearest connections."

"To envy anybody is to confess ourselves his inferior."

"To love is to make a compact with sorrow."

"I most heartly thank my god for Sparing My life to See this hapy day."

"I was an artist with many social connections, and – don’t tell! – I may have been a spy. I was born on Long Island, New York in 1725, but by the time I was four I was living in Bordentown, New Jersey. My father was a devout Quaker, and I was passionate about art, especially sculpting, so when I was twenty-one I moved to Philadelphia, the center of American art. I married a fellow Quaker, Joseph Wright, and we moved back to Bordentown, before he unexpectedly died in 1769. But I didn’t give up my art dreams, and along with my sister Rachel, who was also a widow, we started a business making wax sculptures, and soon we had salons in Philadelphia and New York City. I met Benjamin Franklin, and he convinced me to move to London and introduced me to important people who wanted to be sculpted. Things were bad between Britain and its colonies, and I supported the efforts of Prime Minister William Pitt who was trying to reconcile everyone. But at the same time, while my many subjects – including the King himself – were posing, we’d talk openly and honestly about what was going on. If any valuable military or political news came my way, I’d write it in a letter to the Continental Congress, which I would then smuggle out in my wax statues. I also tried to help American prisoners of war who were jailed in England. And at the same time, I also tried to compensate Loyalists for their losses. I wanted to get back to New Jersey, but I died in London in 1786. Nobody knows where I am buried."

"My Friends Write to Me from America that Joseph Wright (my Son) "has Painted a Likeness and also moddel’d a Clay Bust of General Washington which will be a very great honour to My Famaly.""

"I joyne with all My friends in the pleasing prospect that Posterity will See, and behold the Statue of the man who was apointed by his Contry, and the voice of the Enlightend Part of Mankind to be the great general to Save the Liberties of the Christian Religion and Stop the Pride and Insolence of old England. and by his truly great and Noble Example in all human Vertues he has Restord Peace on Earth, good Will toward mankind."

"I am Impatient to have a Copy of what he has done that I may have the honour of making a model from it in Wax Work—it has been for some time the Wish and desire of my heart to moddel a Likeness of generel Washington, then I shall think my Self ariv’d at the End of all my Earthly honours and Return in Peace to Enjoy my Native Country. I am Sir with gratitude an Respect Your very humble Servnt"

"Truly hapy are You Sir, to have the greatful thanks of all Europe—with the Prayir of the Widows and the Fatherless—You have my most greatful thanks for your Kind atention to my Son in taking him in to your Famaly to encourage his genii and giving him the pleasing opertunity of taking a Likeness that has I Sincerly hope, gave his Contry and your Friends Sir, Satisfaction."

"In my brother's absence from home, I was, of course, left solely to amuse myself with my own thoughts, which were anything but cheerful. I found I was to be trained for an assistant astronomer, and, by way of encouragement, a telescope adapted for 'sweeping,' consisting of a tube with two glasses, such as are commonly used in a 'finder,' was given me. I was 'to sweep for comets,' and I see by my journal that I began August 22, 1782, to write down and describe all remarkable appearances I saw in my 'sweeps,' which were horizontal. But it was not till the last two months of the same year that I felt the least encouragement to spend the starlight nights on a grass-plot covered with dew or hoar-frost, without a human being near enough to be within call; for I knew too little of the real heavens to be able to point out every object so as to find it again without losing too much time by consulting the atlas. But all these troubles were removed when I knew my brother to be at no great distance, making observations with his various instruments on double stars, planets, etc., and I could have his assistance immediately when I found a nebula, or cluster of stars, of which I intended to give a catalogue; .but, at the end of 1783, I had only marked fourteen, when my sweeping was interrupted by being employed to write down my brother's observations with the large twenty-foot. I had, however, the comfort to see that my brother was satisfied with my endeavors to assist him when he wanted another person, either to run to the clocks, write down a memorandum, fetch and carry instruments, or measure the ground with poles, etc., of which something of the kind every moment would occur."

"It is only the vulgar who are always fancying themselves insulted. If a man treads on another's toe in good society, do you think it is taken as an insult?"

"The employment of writing down the observations when my brother uses the twenty-foot reflector does not often allow me time to look at the heavens; but, as he is now on a visit to Germany, I have taken the opportunity to sweep in the neighborhood of the sun in search of comets; and last night, the 1st of August, about ten o'clock, I found an object very much resembling in color and brightness the 27 nebulæ of the Connoissance des Temps, with the difference, however, of being round. I suspected it to be a comet; but, a haziness coming on, it was not possible to satisfy myself as to its motion till this evening.""

"A poor gentlewoman, doctor, is the worst thing in the world"

"I shall go on making sublime and philosophical discoveries, and employing myself in deep, abstract studies."

"Nobody is such a fool as to moider away his time in the slip-slop conversation of a pack of women."

""I wish you joy most sincerely on the discovery. I am more pleased than you can well conceive that you have made it, and I think I see your wonderfully clever and wonderfully amiable brother, upon the news of it, shed a tear of joy. You have immortalized your name, and you deserve such a reward for your assiduity in the business of astronomy, and for your love for so celebrated and deserving a brother."

"It may easily be supposed that I must have been fully employed (besides minding the heavens) to prepare everything as well as I could against the time I was to give up the place of housekeeper on the 8th of May.""

"I have nothing to fear… I am the sun, the stars, the pearl, the lion, the light from heaven."

"I shall not allow the pension… to be stopped by force: I shall resign it,"

"My dear nephew was only in his sixth year when I came to be detached from the family circle. But this did not hinder John and I from remaining the most affectionate friends, and many a half or whole holiday he was allowed to spend with me, was dedicated to making experiments in chemistry, where generally all boxes, tops of tea-canisters, pepper-boxes, teacups, &c., served for the necessary vessels, and the sand-tub furnished the matter to be analysed. I only had to take care to exclude water, which would have produced havoc on my carpet."

"With saddened heart but unflagging determination she continued to work for her brother, but saw his domestic happiness pass into other keeping. It is not to be supposed, however, that a nature so strong and a heart so affectionate should accept the new state of things without much and bitter suffering. To resign the supreme place by her brother's side, which she had filled for sixteen years with such hearty devotion, could not he otherwise than painful in any case; but how much more so in this, where equal devotion to the same pursuit must have made identity of interest and purpose as complete as it is rare! One who could both feel and express herself so strongly was not likely to fall into her new place without some outward expression of what it cost her—tradition confirms the assumption—and it is easy to understand how this long, significant silence is due to the light of later wisdom and calmer judgment which counseled the destruction of all record of what was likely to be painful to survivors.""

"Do they display science or pretty wit? If their works are bad, they get a bird; if they are good, one robbed them; they keep merely the ridiculousness of having presented themselves as the authoresses."

"To avoid this it is best, indeed necessary, that female minds – as they say – having been elevated enough on their own and filled, be kept away entirely from the liberal disciplines and be content with the management of domestic affairs, busying themselves with the needle and the spindle; these things, and others of this kind, are proper to women, unlike pen and paper, since nothing is really more irritating than a learned woman in a debate. Most equitable judges, these things are the fortifications and foundations that must be overturned and destroyed. I dare to promise that the opinion of all your adversaries will be rejected by me as a thing of no importance”."

"Do they show science or wit? If their works are bad, they are jeered at; if they are good, they are taken from them, and they are left only with ridicule for letting themselves be called authors."

"Man always acts to achieve goals; the goal of the Christian is the glory of God, “I hope my studies have brought glory to God, as there were useful to others, and derived from obedience, because that was my father’s will. Now I have found better ways and means to serve God, and to be useful to others."

"Sir, you’ll surely be welcome at our place, poor thought ‘tis,"

"I am sure you will find no better wife anywhere.”"

"I wanted all that was due to me"

"The time spent with a lover is an ending in itself, not a prelude to a more desirable circumstance"

".I just feel that a man's appetite for plurality corresponds to their tremendous reproductive potential."

"It wasn't love. It wasn't romance. I don't know what to call it, but it was much more refreshing than fairy-tales and deceitfully implied suggestions of a future together"

"I realized something profound: love is it's own entity. It stands by itself or else I wouldn't have been able to remain in love without the man who inspired it."

"The is most appropriately named, for, in addition to the pensive drooping appearance of its branches, it is common to see little drops of water, which stand like fallen tears upon the leaves. The willow will grow in any but a dry soil, but most delights and best thrives in the immediate neighbourhood of water."

"The , from the esculent quality of the s, which, in times of scarcity, are frequently eaten by the poor in the south of France, ground, and made into bread: some eat them fresh like nuts; they are sweet, and very different from our s. This Oak was cultivated by in 1739."

"... queen Elizabeth ... is said to have planted an with her own hand at , in which she was brought up when an infant. It went always by her name, and I remember it a stately flourishing tree, except that the top was decayed. It stood at the upper end of , near where the turnpike now is, and was boundary of the parish on the north side. It was felled, to the great regret of the neighbourhood, on the 11th of November 1745, and sold for a , by lord of the manor."

"says that the gum-resin, called ', is supposed to be the incense formerly used by the ancients in their religious ceremonies, though not the substance known by that name in shops. It is much employed by the Roman Catholics in their chapels, for similar uses: when burned, it diffuses a very fragrant smell. This olibanum, or true frankincense, has been supposed to be the produce of the , but that plant does not afford any resin. The olibanum now sold in the shops is the produce of the ."

"Bess Kent is an enigmatic figure. We know she wrote voluminous letters, in which she laid her heart bare, but few have survived. We know that she wrote at least three books — two about flowers and trees and one for children, and that she planned to write another — but we know little about how she conducted her research, or how long these books took her to write. In the late 1810s and early 1820s she attempted to wean herself off , but there is little to indicate when she first developed this addiction. She made at least one suicide attempt and threatened to make others, but the circumstances surrounding them are a matter of conjecture."

"All Europe, and the temperate parts of the vast , abound with . The , which is little regarded in warmer climates, is used for a variety of purposes in the bleak and barren , and in other northern countries. ... In the it affords a dye. en cloth boiled in water, and afterwards in a strong decoction made from the green tops and flowers of this plant, becomes of a beautiful orange-colour. Brettius relates, that a kind of ale brewed from these young tops was much used by the : and it is said to be still an ingredient in the beer in some of the Western Isles. In many parts of Great Britain s are made of this Heath; and it is an excellent fuel. The flowers are either a kind of rose-colour slightly tinged with purple, or they are quite white. Bees collect a great quantity of honey from them."

"The is an evergreen shrub, with fine glossy leaves: the honey-breathing blossoms, as Evelyn terms them, come out in May; they are numerous, but very small, and are very grateful to bees. It is a native of Europe and , and was introduced into this country in 1629."

"is thought to make the best , and its soot is a good lamp-black for printers' ink. The leaves are good fodder for horses, kine, sheep, and goats; and the seeds are the favourite food of the ."

"I have gloried in my rebel countrymen! Would to God I, too, had been a patriot."