Cavendish Quotes & Sayings

As for plenty, we had not only for necessity, conveniency and decency, but for delight and pleasure to superfluity. — Margaret Cavendish

The night in question, I had put aside my perpetual lavatory read, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, because of all the manuscripts (inedible green tomatoes) submitted to Cavendish-Redux, my new stable of champions. I suppose it was about eleven o'clock when I heard my front door being interfered with. Skinhead munchkins mug-or-treating?
Cherry knockers? The wind?
Next thing I knew, the door flew in off its ruddy hinges! I was thinking al-Queda, I was thinking ball lightning, but no. Down the hallway tramped what seemed like an entire rugby team, though the intruders numbered only three. (You'll notice, I am always attacked in threes.) "Timothy," pronounced the gargoyliest, "Cavendish, I presume. Caught with your cacks down."
"My business hours are eleven to two, gentlemen," Bogart would have said, "with a three-hour break for lunch. Kindly leave." All I could do was blurt, "Oy! My door! My ruddy door! — David Mitchell

Cavendish was "Avonlea" to a certain extent. "Lover's Lane" was a very beautiful lane through the woods on a neighbour's farm. It was a beloved haunt of mine from my earliest days. The "Shore Road" has a real existence, between Cavendish and Rustico. But the "White Way of Delight," "Wiltonmere," and "Violet Vale" were transplanted from the estates of my castles in Spain. "The Lake of Shining Waters" is generally supposed to be Cavendish Pond. This is not so. The pond I had in mind is the one at Park Corner, below Uncle John Campbell's house. — L.M. Montgomery

And though I might have learnt more wit and advanced my understanding by living in a Court, yet being dull, fearful and bashful, I neither heeded what was said or practised, but just what belonged to my loyal duty and my own honest reputation. — Margaret Cavendish

An utter success,' her stepdaughters confided to
Margaret as they prepared to take their leave. 'The handsome king! That spoof!' Still the rain persisted, and the bishop had lost his hat. Maids danced in and out. Where was the bishop's hat? Alone at the window, Margaret didn't hear. The reflection of the parlor was yellow and warm. She watched it empty out. Then, an interruption. A voice came at her side: 'What do you look at with such interest, Lady Cavendish?' What did she see in the glass? She saw the Marchioness of Newcastle. She saw the aging wife of an aged marquess, without even any children to dignify her life. — Danielle Dutton

I will take what I can from Edward. And then I will let them fade into history, all the characters in this drama. Emma Matthews and the men who loved her, who became obsessed with her. They're not important to us now. — J.P. Delaney

Mrs. Cavendish: I am charming to my friends one day, and forget all about them the next. — Agatha Christie

The fact that Ben retained Cavendish shows how seriously he took the matter; you don't hunt rabbits with an elephant gun. — Robert A. Heinlein

Only about seventy years ago was chemistry, like a grain of seed from a ripe fruit, separated from the other physical sciences. With Black, Cavendish and Priestley, its new era began. Medicine, pharmacy, and the useful arts, had prepared the soil upon which this seed was to germinate and to flourish. — Justus Von Liebig

So it was this multi-perspective, multi-character book, and it went through all of these different manifestations. I'm not sure there was a single moment where I thought to myself, Oh, I need to write about Margaret Cavendish. She just kept taking over the book I thought I was writing. — Danielle Dutton

After the dustman's compliment, all others are insipid. — Georgiana Cavendish

Nature, being a wise and provident lady, governs her parts very wisely, methodically, and orderly: Also, she is very industrious and hates to be idle, which makes her employ her time as a good housewife doth. — Margaret Cavendish

Our underclothes were woolen vests and knickers and an extraordinary, but apparently necessary, concoction called a liberty bodice, which had no freedom about it, so how it got its name I cannot imagine. It was made of some harsh stuff, with here and there straps and buttons that did nothing. — Deborah Cavendish, Duchess Of Devonshire

Be always lavish of your caresses, and sparing in your corrections. — William Cavendish

The director cleared her throat just a few shots in. "Um, so, is there anything you can do about that, Mr Cavendish? This is not an X-rated publication ... "
James, shameless bastard that he was, seemed completely unfazed. "You'll just need to shoot me waist up. You were the one who wanted my girlfriend in the shot, putting her hands on me. What did you think was going to happen? — R.K. Lilley

The truth is, we [women] live like bats, or owls, labor like beasts, and die like worms. — Margaret Cavendish

I would rather die in the adventure of noble achievements than live in obscure and sluggish security. — Margaret Cavendish

His Theory of the Universe seems to have been, that it consisted solely of a multitude of objects which could be weighed, numbered, and measured; and the vocation to which he considered himself called was, to weigh, number and measure as many of those objects as his allotted three-score years and ten would permit. This conviction biased all his doings, alike his great scientific enterprises, and the petty details of his daily life. — George Wilson

There is little difference between man and beast, but what ambition and glory makes. — Margaret Cavendish

Suggested that Gnosticism expressed a specific religious experience, which was frequently turned into a myth ... It seems clear that at least some of the major Gnostic systems were inspired by vivid emotions and personal experience. And it is now generally accepted that Gnosticism was not a philosophy, or even a Christian heresy, but a religion with its own specific views about God, the world, and man. ("Gnosticism," in Cavendish, Man, Myth, and Magic 1115) And, we might add, Gnosticism is a religion replete with sacraments that liberate the soul. — Stephan A. Hoeller

In 1945 J.A. Ratcliffe ... suggested that I [join his group at Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge] to start an investigation of the radio emission from the Sun, which had recently been discovered accidentally with radar equipment ... [B]oth Ratcliffe and Sir Lawrence Bragg, then Cavendish Professor, gave enormous support and encouragement to me. Bragg's own work on X-ray crystallography involved techniques very similar to those we were developing for "aperture synthesis", and he always showed a delighted interest in the way our work progressed. — Martin Ryle

Besides, we shall want employments for our senses, and subjects for arguments; for were there nothing but truth, and no falsehood, there would be no occasion for to dispute, and by this means we should want the aim and pleasure of our endeavours in confuting and contradicting each other; neither would one man be thought wiser than another, but all would either be alike knowing and wise, or all would be fools ... — Margaret Cavendish

The Ancestral Trail was split into two-halves of 26 issues each. The first half takes place in the Ancestral World and describes Richard's struggle to restore good to the world. After the initial international run, which sold over 30 million copies worldwide, Marshall Cavendish omitted the second part of the trilogy and used the third part (future) for the second series that followed. This part of the series, written up by Ian Probert and published in 1994, takes place in the Cyber Dimension. It deals with Richard's attempts to return home. Each issue centered on an adventure against a particular adversary, and each issue ended on a cliffhanger.
The Ancestral Trail was illustrated by Julek and Adam Heller. Computer-generated graphics were provided by Mehau Kulyk for issues #27 through #52. — Frank Graves

Now being upon the haunches (as he necessarily must be in this case) is it impossible but he must be light in hand, because no horse can be rightly upon his haunches without being so. — William Cavendish

Women's Tongues are as sharp as two-edged Swords, and wound as much, when they are anger'd. — Margaret Cavendish

How could this man - so capable of extreme violence against her - show such gentleness? BUT, she reminded herself, even Hitler loved his dogs."
- Charlotte, The Devil's Serenade — Catherine Cavendish

Cavendish was a great Man with extraordinary singularities - His voice was squeaking his manner nervous He was afraid of strangers & seemed when embarrassed to articulate with difficulty - He wore the costume of our grandfathers. Was enormously rich but made no use of his wealth ... Cavendish lived latterly the life of a solitary, came to the Club dinner & to the Royal Society: but received nobody at his home. He was acute sagacious & profound & I think the most accomplished British Philosopher of his time. — Humphry Davy

Deborah, Duchess of Devonshire recounts her decision to leave her husband after decades of struggle with his alcoholism. Several days later, he wrote to her: "The miracle occurred; I realized that in addition to all the suffering I had caused, I was not my own master. I decided this slavery must stop once and for all." And it did. — Deborah Cavendish, Duchess Of Devonshire

At the embassy for supper - quail in broth and oysters - Lady Browne remembered my father, whom she'd met at Queen Elizabeth's court. Yet one name only was on the tongue of Sir Richard: William Cavendish, newly made marquess. This gentleman, he reported between oysters, had recently fled to Hamburg after losing badly with a regiment raised near York. A master horseman and fencer, and one of the richest men in England, he wrote plays - oyster - collected viols - oyster - "his particular love in music" - and was by all accounts - oyster - affable and quick. — Danielle Dutton

Pain and Oblivion make mankind afraid to die; but all creatures are afraid of the one, none but mankind afraid of the other. — Margaret Cavendish

Thoughts are like stars in the firmament; some are fixed, others like the wandering planets, others again are only like meteors. Understanding is like the Sun, which gives light to all the thoughts. Memory is like the Moon, it hath its new, its full and its wane. — Margaret Cavendish

Some brains are barren grounds, that will not bring seed or fruit forth, unless they are well manured with the old wit which is raked from other writers and speakers. — Margaret Cavendish

That in former ages they had been as wise as they are in this present, nay, wiser; for, said they, many in this age do think their forefathers have been fools, by which they prove themselves to be such. — Margaret Cavendish

Cambridge was the place for someone from the Colonies or the Dominions to go on to, and it was to the Cavendish Laboratory that one went to do physics. — Aaron Klug

Margaret Cavendish was one of the people who came up in the course. That was when I started thinking about her as a character for a book, but my idea was for a totally different book. It had all these characters in it; Samuel Pepys was one of the main characters. He famously wrote these extensive diaries through the period that are really funny and sort of saucy, actually. — Danielle Dutton

Not that I am ashamed of my mind or body, my birth or breeding, my actions or fortunes, for my bashfulness is in my nature, not for any crime. — Margaret Cavendish

The main secret for a horse that is heavy upon the hand, is for the rider to have a very light one; for when he finds nothing to bear upon with his mouth, he infallibly throws himself upon the haunches for his own security. — William Cavendish

As for my brothers, of whom I had three, I know not how they were bred. — Margaret Cavendish

I was obsessed with the scientific instruments people were building and all the weird experiments they were doing. I did actually wind up working in some of that, but there were whole sections I'd written about these instruments that ultimately had to be abandoned when I realized that the book really was about Margaret Cavendish. I couldn't justify using all of them. — Danielle Dutton

Use gentle means before you come to extremity, and whatever lesson you work him, and never take above half his strength, nor ride him till he is weary, but a little at a time and often. — William Cavendish

I was lost. I was found. I, James Cavendish, unrepentant dominant, sexual deviant, and prolific slut for more years than I cared to count, was in love. I'd taken her virgin body, but just as surely, she'd taken my virgin heart. — R.K. Lilley

I was trying to focus on Margaret's trajectory as an artist, as a woman and an artist. Hopefully Cavendish experts won't be angry at me for anything I've left out. I feel like all the major movements of her life are there. — Danielle Dutton

Without knowing this, no man can dress a horse perfectly. — William Cavendish

Their country-place, Styles Court, had been purchased by Mr. Cavendish early in their married life. He had been completely under his wife's ascendancy, so much so that, on dying, he left the place to her for her lifetime, as well as the larger part of his income; an arrangement that was distinctly unfair to his two sons. — Agatha Christie

My other brother, the Lord Lucas, who was heir to my father's estate, and as it were the father to take care of us all, is not less valiant than they were, although his skill in the discipline of war was not so much, not being bred therein. — Margaret Cavendish

The word "missing" is particularly cruel, leaving as it does a ray of hope that the person will turn up safe and well, even in the most doomed circumstances. As days go by, it becomes increasingly unlikely and yet and yet ... — Deborah Cavendish, Duchess Of Devonshire

Indeed, I was so afraid to dishonour my friends and family by my indiscreet actions, that I rather chose to be accounted a fool, than to be thought rude or wanton. — Margaret Cavendish

And not only my own brothers and sisters agreed so but my brothers and sisters in law; and their children, although but young, had the like agreeable natures and affectionate dispositions. — Margaret Cavendish

But we ought to consider the natural form and shape of a horse, that we may work him according to nature. — William Cavendish

You must in all Airs follow the strength, spirit, and disposition of the horse, and do nothing against nature; for art is but to set nature in order, and nothing else. — William Cavendish

The world would be a rather better place if we looked only for God in one another.
Harry Cavendish — Deanna Raybourn

My wife is so hot so I don't care it I lose every stage of the 2015 Tour to Kittle. Yea, he's got cool hair but my wife is super hot. — Mark Cavendish

In such misfortunes my Mother was of an heroic spirit, in suffering patiently when there was no remedy, and being industrious where she thought she could help. — Margaret Cavendish

These are excellent lessons to break him, and make him light in hand: but nothing puts a horse so much upon his haunches, and consequently makes him so light in hand, as my new method of the pillar. — William Cavendish

He keeps us waiting rather than wishing for him. I feel it a matter of perfect indifference whether he arrives at any moment or not at all." - Lady Harriet Cavendish of George Beau Brummell — Ian Kelly

But one day, when Toby is old enough, I will take down a shoe box from a shelf where it is kept, and I will tell him again the story of his sister, Isabel Margaret Cavendish, the girl who came before. — J.P. Delaney

As for our garments, my Mother did not only delight to see us neat and cleanly, fine and gay, but rich and costly: maintaining us to the heighth of her estate, but not beyond it. — Margaret Cavendish

By this way you may dress all sorts of horses in the utmost perfection, if you know how to practice it; a thing that is very easy in the hands of a master. — William Cavendish

In private, though, you may call me Mr. Cavendish — R.K. Lilley

Well, it is this: that Mrs. Cavendish does not care, and never has cared one little jot about Dr. Bauerstein!"
"Do you really think so?" I could not disguise my pleasure.
"I am quite sure of it. And I will tell you why."
"Yes?"
"Because she cares for some one else, mon ami."
"Oh!" What did he mean? In spite of myself, an agreeable warmth spread over me. I am not a vain man where women are concerned, but I remembered certain evidences, too lightly thought of at the time, perhaps, but which certainly seemed to indicate - - — Agatha Christie

Indeed I had not much wit, yet I was not an idiot - my wit was according to my years. — Margaret Cavendish

For Pleasure, Delight, Peace and Felicity live in method and temperance. — Margaret Cavendish

If Atomes are as small, as small can bee,They must in quantity of Matter all agree — Margaret Cavendish

And he that said that a horse was not dressed, whose curb was not loose, said right; and it is equally true that the curb can never play, when in its right place, except the horse be upon his haunches. — William Cavendish

Not because they were servants were we so reserved, for many noble persons are forced to serve through necessity, but by reason the vulgar sort of servants are as ill bred as meanly born, giving children ill examples and worse counsel. — Margaret Cavendish

What is possible in the Cavendish Laboratory may not be too difficult in the sun. — Arthur Eddington

One may be my very good friend, and yet not of my opinion ... — Margaret Cavendish

Henry Dalton, Marquess of Cavendish, — Amylynn Bright

In the end we're nothing more substantial,
it would seem,
than so much tiny star-stuff and a dream;
coordinates of will so existential
that, in the final analysis,
there is no thinker, just the thought.
We create ourselves to learn we can't exist.
It could be said we think therefore we're not.
We're just a place that atoms hurdle through,
a vortex with a cosmic attitude.


fr. "The Lady Cavendish's Atoms — Gilbert Wesley Purdy

I used to work in a bank when I was younger and to me it doesn't matter whether it's raining or the sun is shining or whatever: as long as I'm riding a bike I know I'm the luckiest guy in the world. — Mark Cavendish

So that's when I saw the DNA model for the first time, in the Cavendish, and that's when I saw that this was it. And in a flash you just knew that this was very fundamental. — Sydney Brenner

I am not covetous, but as ambitious as ever any of my sex was, is, or can be; which makes, that though I cannot be Henry the Fifth, or Charles the Second, yet I endeavour to be Margaret the First; and although I have neither power, time, not occasion to conquer the world as Alexander and Caesar did; yet rather than not be mistress of one, since Fortune and Fates would give me none, I have made a world of my own; for which nobody, I hope, will blame me, since it is in everyone's power to do the like. — Margaret Cavendish

The spirit was willing but the flesh was weak. — David Mitchell

That much gold, and great store of riches makes them mad, insomuch as they endeavour to destroy each other ... — Margaret Cavendish

A rude nature is worse than a brute nature by so much more as man is better than a beast: and those that are of civil natures and genteel dispositions are as much nearer to celestial creatures as those that are rude and cruel are to devils. — Margaret Cavendish

Life is, you know, but an idea. You can fill it up with anything really and deceive yourself into believing that is what you need. You can be happy, sad, benevolent, crafty, unpleasant. That man filled it up with nastiness and it destroyed him in the end. I wonder what could have made him that way. Cruelty on the part of others or cruelty in his heart?" - Lady Cavendish — Noorilhuda

My mother was a good mistress to her servants, taking care of them in their sicknesses, not sparing any cost she was able to bestow for their recovery. — Margaret Cavendish

The Lake Isle
O God, O Venus, O Mercury, patron of thieves,
Give me in due time, I beseech you, a little tobacco-shop,
With the little bright boxes
piled up neatly upon the shelves
And the loose fragrant cavendish
and the shag,
And the bright Virginia
loose under the bright glass cases,
And a pair of scales not too greasy,
And the whores dropping in for a word or two in passing,
For a flip word, and to tidy their hair a bit.
O God, O Venus, O Mercury, patron of thieves,
Lend me a little tobacco-shop,
or install me in any profession
Save this damn'd profession of writing,
where one needs one's brains all the time. — Ezra Pound

The Story Girl was written in 1910 and published in 1911. It was the last book I wrote in my old home by the gable window where I had spent so many happy hours of creation. It is my own favourite among my books, the one that gave me the greatest pleasure to write, the one whose characters and landscape seem to me most real. All the children in the book are purely imaginary. The old "King Orchard" was a compound of our old orchard in Cavendish and the orchard at Park Corner. "Peg Bowen" was suggested by a half-witted, gypsy-like personage who roamed at large for many years over the Island and was the terror of my childhood. — L.M. Montgomery

But there is nothing to be done till a horse's head is settled. — William Cavendish

I am a fellow commoner at Lucy Cavendish College. My husband used to be a lecturer at Leeds University, and we lived in Yorkshire for 11 years. When he gave up his job, we realised we could live wherever we liked. — Sophie Hannah

Indeed I did not stand as a beggar at the Parliament door, for I never was at the Parliament-House, nor stood I ever at the door as I do know or can remember; not as a petitioner I am sure. — Margaret Cavendish

A small bubble of air remained unabsorbed ... if there is any part of the phlogisticated air [nitrogen] of our atmosphere which differs from the rest, and cannot be reduced to nitrous acid, we may safely conclude that it is not more than 1/120 part of the whole.
[Cavendish did not realize the significance of the remaining small bubble. Not until a century later were the air's Noble Gases appreciated.] — Henry Cavendish

The interpretations of science do not give us this intimate sense of objects as the interpretations of poetry give it; they appeal to a limited faculty, and not to the whole man. It is not Linnaeus or Cavendish or Cuvier who gives us the true sense of animals, or water, or plants, who seizes their secret for us, who makes us participate in their life; it is Shakspeare [sic] ... Wordsworth ... Keats ... Chateaubriand ... Senancour. — Matthew Arnold

For I, hearing my Lord's estate amongst many more estates was to be sold, and that the wives of the owners should have an allowance therefrom, it gave me hopes I should receive a benefit thereby. — Margaret Cavendish

Who can Perswade more Powerfully than Poets? — Margaret Cavendish

The horse's neck is between the two reins of the bridle, which both meet in the rider's hand. — William Cavendish

As she walked slowly down the hall, she could hear them arguing - nothing violent, nothing impassioned. But then, she'd not have expected that. Cavendish tempers ran cold, and they were far more likely to attack with a frozen barb than a heated cry. — Julia Quinn

[Henry Cavendish] fixed the weight of the earth; he established the proportions of the constituents of the air; he occupied himself with the quantitative study of the laws of heat; and lastly, he demonstrated the nature of water and determined its volumetric composition. Earth, air, fire, and water - each and all came within the range of his observations. — Thomas Edward Thorpe

We can do this as many times as you want, Mrs. Cavendish. — R.K. Lilley

Prosperity is like perfume, it often makes the head ache. — Margaret Cavendish

I would be researching seventeenth-century garden design or I would be doing something with Pepys, but I just kept using all of it to write about Margaret Cavendish. It took me a long time to realize that I just wanted to write a book about her. Years. — Danielle Dutton

Marriage is the grave or tomb of wit. — Margaret Cavendish

Before her, with sharp blue eyes and perfectly coiffed blond hair, was Josephine Marie Elizabeth Cavendish, Her Grace, the Duchess of Durham, widow of the fifth duke, and aunt to the Cavendish siblings.
One did not call her Josie. Amelia had asked. — Maya Rodale

And though my Lord hath lost his estate and been banished out of his country, yet neither despised poverty nor pinching necessity could make him break the bonds of friendship or weaken his loyal duty. — Margaret Cavendish

You should pull him back besides in all the lines before the quarter, just as you make the others advance. — William Cavendish

The multitude," Cavendish says, "is always desirous of a change. They never see a great man set up but they must pull him down
for the novelty of the thing. — Hilary Mantel

But if our sex would but well consider and rationally ponder, they will perceive and find that it is neither words nor place that can advance them, but worth and merit. — Margaret Cavendish

For disorder obstructs: besides, it doth disgust life, distract the appetities, and yield no true relish to the senses. — Margaret Cavendish

Everyone's conscience in religion is between God and themselves, and it belongs to none other. — Margaret Cavendish