Dorothy Osborne

Dorothy Osborne, Lady Temple (1627–1695) was an English writer of letters and wife of Sir William Temple, 1st Baronet.

Quotes

The Love Letters of Dorothy Osborne to Sir William Temple, 1652–54, ed. E. A. Parry (New York, 1901)
The Letters of Dorothy Osborne to William Temple, ed. G. C. Moore Smith (Oxford University Press, 1928)

[F]or me 'tis a better-natured and a less fault to believe too much than to distrust where there is no cause.
- 5 March 1653

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.
- June 1653

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.
- October 1653

I shall never be persuaded that marriage has a charm to raise love out of nothing, much less out of dislike.
- 1653

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.
- 1653

[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.
- 1653

'[T]is a sad thing when all one's happiness is only that the world does not know you are miserable.
- 1653

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.
- March 1654