Dorothy Osborne

"[F]or me 'tis a better-natured and a less fault to believe too much than to distrust where there is no cause."

"The heat of the day is spent in reading or working, and about six or seven o’clock, I walk out into a common that lies hard by the house, where a great many young wenches keep sheep and cows and sit in the shade singing of ballads. [...] I talk to them, and find they want nothing to make them the happiest people in the world, but the knowledge that they are so."

"All letters, methinks, should be as free and easy as one’s discourse, not studied as an oration, nor made up of hard words like a charm."

"I shall never be persuaded that marriage has a charm to raise love out of nothing, much less out of dislike."

"I am not apt to suspect without just cause, but in earnest if I once find anybody faulty towards me, they lose me for ever; I have forsworn being twice deceived by the same person."

"[A] real kindness is so far beyond all compliment, that it never appears more than when there is least of t'other mingled with it."

"'[T]is a sad thing when all one's happiness is only that the world does not know you are miserable."

"I had rather agree to what you say than tell you that Dr Taylor (whose devote you must know I am) says there is a great advantage to be gained in resigning up one’s will to the command of another, because the same action which in itself is wholly indifferent if done upon our own choice, becomes an act of duty and religion if done in obedience to the command of any person whom nature, the laws, or our selves have given a power over us."