Countess Quotes & Sayings

It is a sad thing to look at happiness only through another's eyes. — Marguerite Gardiner, Countess Of Blessington

You know, Rose, Mr. Louie's altogether my idea of what a gentleman should be. He's a little bit undersized, I know. But there! What's an inch or two when you love a man? — Countess Barcynska

Wit is the lightning of the mind, reason the sunshine, and reflection the moonlight ... — Marguerite Gardiner, Countess Of Blessington

But, who is Death? A figure that harrows and wastes wherever and however it pleases. This is also a possible description of the Countess Bathory. Never did anyone wish so hard not to grow old; I mean, to die. That is why, perhaps, she acted and played the role of Death. Because, how can Death possibly die? — Alejandra Pizarnik

Listeners beware, for ye are doomed never to hear good of yourselves. — Marguerite Gardiner, Countess Of Blessington

My incomparable beloved,
Seven months you have been gone, and I fear you will never return. I await your brief, infrequent letters like a boy, desperate for any small indication that you remember I exist, hoping for evidence that you tire of that foreign land where you now live. I read your missives a hundred times for the slightest intimation that you will be coming home. The part of my mind that does nothing but wait grows daily, and soon nothing will be left to attend to life's duties. One word, my love, just one; that is all I seek. One word to let me know that you will not stay away forever, and that I will at least have your presence and friendship in my life, even if I can never have your passion and your love.
Julian Hampton to Penelope, Countess of Glasbury — Madeline Hunter

I can melt steel, fucker, I'll microwave your guts and punch them our your asshole. — Garth Ennis

We have a reading, a talking, and a writing public. When shall we have a thinking? — Marguerite Gardiner, Countess Of Blessington

Firiel. I have a question for you. How would you like to marry my brother and become the Countess Roland someday? — Noriko Ogiwara

How did you persuade the countess to confess so quickly?" she asked. "I would have thought she would have held out for days. I would have thought she would rather die than admit anything - "
"I'm afraid that was the choice I gave her."
Her eyes widened. "Oh," she whispered.
-Lillian & Marcus — Lisa Kleypas

I'm certain Blackmoor will protect you from anything over unusual, my dear." Alex looked at her companion and tilted her head, pretending to consider the statement before turning back to the countess. "I suppose he'll have to do. — Sarah MacLean

I shall leave you to your Sisyphean task."
"What does that mean?" he heard Daisy ask.
Lillian replied while her smiling gaze remained locked with Marcus's. "It seems you avoided one too many Greek mythology lessons, dear. Sisyphus was a soul in Hades who was damned to perform an eternal task... rolling a huge boulder up a hill, only to have it roll down again just before he reached the top."
"Then if the countess is Sisyphus," Daisy concluded, "I suppose we're..."
"The boulder," Lady Westcliff said succinctly, causing both girls to laugh.
"Do continue with our instruction, my lady," Lillian said, giving her full attention to the elderly woman as Marcus left the room. "We'll try not to flatten you on the way down. — Lisa Kleypas

A man should never boast of his courage, nor a woman of her virtue, lest their doing so should be the cause of calling their possession of them into question. — Marguerite Gardiner, Countess Of Blessington

As for all the little people who call themselves Marquis de Cambremerde or de Gotoblazes, there is no difference between them and the humblest rookie in your regiment. Whether you go and do wee-wee at the Countess Cack's or cack at the Baroness Wee-wee's, it's exactly the same, you will have compromised your reputation and have used a shitty rag instead of toilet paper. Which is unsavoury. — Marcel Proust

A poor man defended himself when charged with stealing food to appease the cravings of hunger, saying, the cries of the stomach silenced those of the conscience. — Marguerite Gardiner, Countess Of Blessington

Some people are capable of making great sacrifices, but few are capable of concealing how much the effort has cost them; and it is this concealment that constitutes their value. — Marguerite Gardiner, Countess Of Blessington

She danced the dance so well, so well indeed, so perfectly, that Anisya Fyodorovna, who handed her at once the kerchief she needed in the dance, had tears in her eyes, though she laughed as she watched that slender and graceful little countess, reared in silk and velvet, belonging to another world than hers, who was yet able to understand all that was in Anisya and her father and her mother and her aunt and every Russian soul. — Leo Tolstoy

I don't know how these matters are supposed to go," she said finally, in the dark. "I was raised amid mountains and the Milky Way. But it seems to me that if a lady tells a gentleman she is in love with him, even if she's actually just a serf, he ought to either reciprocate the emotion or else leave the room."
"Oh? Is there not a third option? Perhaps, say, a thorough ravishment instead?"
"That is hardly gentlemanly. And I don't think you should call me Princess any longer, either. I'll be a countess, I suppose."
"No, beloved. Remember? A king."
"I'll settle for queen. — Shana Abe

Anna Mikhaylovna was already embracing her and weeping. The countess wept too. They wept because they were friends, and because they were kindhearted, and because they - friends from childhood - had to think about such a base thing as money, and because their youth was over ... But those tears were pleasant to them both. — Leo Tolstoy

Toward Florence he was specially drawn by the fact that Alfieri now lived there; but, as often happens after such separations, the reunion was a disappointment. Alfieri, indeed, warmly welcomed his friend; but he was engrossed in his dawning passion for the Countess of Albany, and — Edith Wharton

When we find that we are not liked, we assert that we are not understood; when probably the dislike we have excited proceeds from our being too fully comprehended. — Marguerite Gardiner, Countess Of Blessington

Men are, if nothing else, predictable. Fortunately for us all, women are not. — Karen Hawkins

Many minds that have withstood the most severe trials have been broken down by a succession of ignoble cares. — Marguerite Gardiner, Countess Of Blessington

My work is done; I have nothing left to do but to go to my Father. — Selina Hastings, Countess Of Huntingdon

To amend mankind, moralists should show them man, not as he is, but as he ought to be. — Marguerite Gardiner, Countess Of Blessington

Wit lives in the present, but genius survives the future. — Marguerite Gardiner, Countess Of Blessington

A sign on the door proclaimed: The countess is NOT to be bothered except in the cases of death, disembowelment, the Apocalypse, or the arrival of her mother. — Courtney Milan

Thoughts come maimed and plucked of plumage from the lips, which, from the pea, in the silence of your own leisure and study, would be born with far more beauty. — Marguerite Gardiner, Countess Of Blessington

Pym!" The Countess spotted a new victim, and her voice went a little dangerous. "I seconded you to look after Miles. Would you care to explain this scene?"
There was a thoughtful pause. In a voice of simple honesty, Pym replied, "No, Milady. — Lois McMaster Bujold

Katie shook her head in dismay. "I thought being poor was the worst thing that could happen to a girl."
"No, Katie," the countess said in a clear voice. "The worst thing is to be in love with one man and have to marry another."
Katie O'Reilly to the Countess of Marbury in "Titanic Rhapsody — Jina Bacarr

Both the countess and Sonya understood that, naturally, neither Moscow, nor the burning of Moscow, nor anything else, could seem of importance to Natasha. — Leo Tolstoy

It was overwhelming for a girl who'd been raised in a trailer park in Cumby, Texas. (Go Trojans!) I took another hit of oxygen and got dizzy. Then I stumbled and fell. Then I hit my head on the clicky ball thing and the desk and collapsed onto the floor — Countess Von Fondle

The Moonlight sonata is a strange piece of music. It's been called a Lamentation. You can feel that when you play it, can feel the sorrow and the endless repetitions. It's simple to play but maddeningly difficult to play well. The arpeggios allow great freedom of expression. Too much freedom in untutored, unskilled hands. They say Beethovan wrote it for a seventeen-year-old countess, the Countess Giulietta Guicciardi. He may have loved her. — Tiffany Reisz

Heaven sends us misfortunes as a moral tonic. — Marguerite Gardiner, Countess Of Blessington

One of the most marked characteristics of our day is a reckless neglect of principles, and a rigid adherence to their semblance. — Marguerite Gardiner, Countess Of Blessington

Memory seldom fails when its office is to show us the tombs of our buried hopes. — Marguerite Gardiner, Countess Of Blessington

Modern historians are all would-be philosophers; who, instead of relating facts as they occurred, give us their version, or rather perversions of them, always colored by their political prejudices, or distorted to establish some theory ... — Marguerite Gardiner, Countess Of Blessington

The vices of the rich and great are mistaken for error; and those of the poor and lowly, for crimes. — Marguerite Gardiner, Countess Of Blessington

Violet, the Dowager Countess: I mean, one way or another, everyone goes down the aisle with half the story hidden. — Jessica Fellowes

I am often tired of myself, and I have a notion that by travel I can add to my personality, and so change myself a little. I do not bring back from a journey quite the same self that I took. — Selina Hastings, Countess Of Huntingdon

Those can most easily dispense with society who are the most calculated to adorn it; they only are dependent on it who possess no mental resources, for though they bring nothing to the general mart, like beggars, they are too poor to stay at home. — Marguerite Gardiner, Countess Of Blessington

The dowager rose and slipped from her pew. There was the sound of tearing silk as she threw up her arms to embrace her son. Then:
"Oh, Rupert, darling," she exclaimed in tones of theatrical despair, "don't you see? The game's up! — Eva Ibbotson

Calumny is the offspring of Envy. — Marguerite Gardiner, Countess Of Blessington

[On writer George Moore:] ... I grew curious about Moore. Yet when at the rehearsal of 'Countess Cathleen' in some dark by-way of London, I was told he was present, I cannot recall any form, only an irritation in the dusty atmosphere. — Susan Mitchell

You know,' said Natasha, 'you have read the Gospels a great deal - there is one place there directly about Sonya.' 'What?' asked Countess Marya, surprised. '"To him that hath shall be given, and from him that hath not shall be taken away." You remember? She is one that hath not; why, I don't know. Perhaps she lacks egotism, I don't know, but from her is taken away, and everything has been taken away. Sometimes I feel so terribly sorry for her. I used to want Nicolas to marry her so terribly before; but I always had a sort of presentiment that it would not happen. She is a sterile flower, you know - like some strawberry blossoms. Sometimes I am sorry for her, and sometimes I think she doesn't feel it as you or I would. — Leo Tolstoy

Conversation is the legs on which thought walks; and writing, the wings by which it flies. — Marguerite Gardiner, Countess Of Blessington

Our weaknesses are the indigenous produce of our characters; but our strength is the forced fruit. — Marguerite Gardiner, Countess Of Blessington

Sir," suddenly exclaimed the countess, after their walk had continued ten minutes in silence, "is it true that you have seen so much, travelled so far, and suffered so deeply?" "I have suffered deeply, madame," answered Monte Cristo. "But now you are happy?" "Doubtless," replied the count, "since no one hears me complain. — Alexandre Dumas

People seem to lose all respect for the past; events succeed each other with such velocity that the most remarkable one of a few years gone by, is no more remembered than if centuries had closed over it. — Marguerite Gardiner, Countess Of Blessington

The other two groaned. "Over my dead body," Lillian said grimly. "You realize we'll have to resort to creative measures if we're to pry Evie out of her family's clutches and find a good match for her."
"We will," came Daisy's confident reply. "Believe me, dear, if we can find a husband for you, we can do anything."
"That does it," Lillian said, and sprang from the settee to advance menacingly toward her with an upraised cushion.
Giggling, Daisy scrambled behind the nearest piece of furniture and cried, "Remember, you're a countess! Where's your dignity?"
"I've misplaced it," Lillian informed her, and chased after her with glee. — Lisa Kleypas

A German writer observes: The noblest characters only show themselves in their real light. All others act comedy with their fellow-men even unto the grave. — Marguerite Gardiner, Countess Of Blessington

A mother's love! O holy, boundless thing!
Fountain whose waters never cease to spring! — Marguerite Gardiner, Countess Of Blessington

Thus did Ada, Countess of Lovelace, help sow the seeds for a digital age that would blossom a hundred years later. — Walter Isaacson

He had grown up among people to whom such emotions were unknown. The old Marquess's passion for his fields and woods was the love of the agriculturist and the hunter, not that of the naturalist or the poet; and the aristocracy of the cities regarded the country merely as so much soil from which to draw their maintenance. The gentlefolk never absented themselves from town but for a few weeks of autumn, when they went to their villas for the vintage, transporting thither all the diversions of city life and venturing no farther afield than the pleasure-grounds that were but so many open-air card-rooms, concert-halls and theatres. Odo's tenderness for every sylvan function of renewal and decay, every shifting of light and colour on the flying surface of the year, would have been met with the same stare with which a certain enchanting Countess — Edith Wharton

These personages, grouped about the toilet-table where the Countess sat under the hands of a Parisian hairdresser, were picturesquely relieved against the stucco panelling and narrow mirrors of the apartment, with its windows looking on a garden set with mossy statues. To Odo, however, the scene suggested the most tedious part of his day's routine. The compliments to be exchanged, the silly verses to be praised, the gewgaws from Paris to be admired, were all contrasted in his mind with the vision of that other life which had come to him on the hillside of the Superga. On — Edith Wharton

A girl nearby muttered,"If that's a lady, I'm a cat."
Reaching out, Sandry lifted the pitcher of milk from the table. Cradling it in both hands, she walked over to the mutterer.
I am Sandrilene fa Toren, daughter of Count Mattin fer Toren and his countess, Amiliane fa Landreg. I am the great-niece of his grace, Duke Vedris of this realm of Emelan, and cousin of her Imperial Highness, Empress Berenene of the Namorn Empire. You are Esmelle ei Pragin, daughter of Baron Witten en Pragin and his lady Colledia of House Wheelwright, a merchant house. If I tell you my friend is a lady, then you"- carefully she poured milk into Esmelle's plate-"you had best start lapping, kitty."
She set the pitcher down and returned to her chair. — Tamora Pierce

Glancing from Marcus to Livia, she exploded, "What is the source of this family's infernal obsession with Americans?"
"What an interesting question, Mother," Livia said drolly. "For some reason none of your offspring can stand the thought of marrying one of their own kind. Why do you suppose that is, Marcus?"
"I suspect the answer would not be flattering to any of us," came his sardonic reply.
-The Countess (their mother), Livia, & Marcus — Lisa Kleypas

Men who would persecute others for religious opinions, prove the errors of their own. — Marguerite Gardiner, Countess Of Blessington

Child that is a beautiful note," the chief justice praised her, "but the next time you write your title, add an O to the countess. — Patricia Grasso

Haste is always ungraceful. — Marguerite Gardiner, Countess Of Blessington

...an ambitious array of dishonorable intentions that he intended to wield upon the Countess's nether regions. - BATS 2015 — Fred Barnett

Mountains appear more lofty the nearer they are approached, but great men resemble them not in this particular. — Marguerite Gardiner, Countess Of Blessington

The ladies, I daresay, will have already selected silk gowns and appropriate jewels," the countess droned on, "and are quite capable of comporting themselves in line with both propriety and fashion."

"I don't care about fashion," Lord Sheffield murmured into Amelia's ear, "but I'm sorely disappointed whenever a lady I escort decides to comport herself with propriety. — Erica Ridley

My countess tells me Genevieve has taken it into her head to remove to Paris. I suspect she wants to avoid being aunt-at-large, while her own situation admits of no change. We are Jenny's family, and Christmas is upon us. Harrison paints, he argues with her, and he has all his teeth. What say you, gentlemen?" "Paris reeks," Lord Kesmore said. "Harrison's scent is rather pleasant by comparison." "He smells of linseed oil," St. Just observed. "A point in his favor," Hazelton murmured, "from Lady Jenny's perspective." Westhaven — Grace Burrowes

Borrowed thoughts, like borrowed money, only show the poverty of the borrower. — Marguerite Gardiner, Countess Of Blessington

The white hands of the tenebrous belle deal the hand of destiny. Her fingernails are longer than those of the mandarins of ancient China and each is pared to a fine point. These and teeth as fine and white as spikes of spun sugar are the visible signs of the destiny she wistfully attempts to evade via the arcana; her claws and teeth have been sharpened on centuries of corpses, she is the last bud of the poison tree that sprang from the loins of Vlad the Impaler who picnicked on corpses in the forests of Transylvania.
The walls of her bedroom are hung with black satin, embroidered with tears of pearl. At the rooms four corners are funerary urns and bowls which emit slumbrous, pungent fumes of incense. In the centre is an elaborate catafalque, in ebony, surrounded by long candles in enormous silver candlesticks. In a white lace negligee stained a little with blood, the Countess climbs up on her catafalque at dawn each morning and lies down in an open coffin. — Angela Carter

[His mind] was like a volcano, full of fire and wealth, sometimes calm, often dazzling and playful, but ever threatening. It ran swift as the lightning from one subject to another, and occasionally burst forth in passionate throes of intellect, nearly allied to madness. — Marguerite Gardiner, Countess Of Blessington

First, we think all truth is beautiful, no matter how hideous its face may seem. We accept all of nature, without any repudiation. We believe there is more beauty in a harsh truth than in a pretty lie, more poetry in earthiness than in all the salons of Paris. We think pain is good because it is the most profound of all human feelings. We think sex is beautiful even when portrayed by a harlot and a pimp. We put character above ugliness, pain above prettiness and hard, crude reality above all the wealth in France. We accept life in its entirety without making moral judgments. We think the prostitute is as good as the countess, the concierge as good as the general, the peasant as good as the cabinet minister, for they all fit into the pattern of nature and are woven into the design of life! — Irving Stone

Pleasure is like a cordial - a little of it is not injurious, but too much destroys. — Marguerite Gardiner, Countess Of Blessington

Only vain people wage war against the vanity of others. — Marguerite Gardiner, Countess Of Blessington

Despotism subjects a nation to one tyrant; democracy, to many. — Marguerite Gardiner, Countess Of Blessington

She's like snow in Russian," said Anna. "Snow in the evening when the sun sets and it looks like Alpengluhen, you know? And if snow had a scent it would smell like that [the rose] ... — Eva Ibbotson

A woman's head is always influenced by her heart, but a man's heart is always influenced by his head. — Marguerite Gardiner, Countess Of Blessington

Genius is the gold in the mine, talent is the miner who works and brings it out. — Marguerite Gardiner, Countess Of Blessington

If you drink the good wine of the noble countess, you have to entertain her less desirable friends. — Virginia Woolf

I ought to have lived in the eighteen hundreds,' he said himself. 'What I want is a patron. I should have published my poems by subscription and dedicated them to a nobleman. I long to compose rhymed couplets upon the poodle of a countess. My soul yearns for the love of chambermaids and the conversation of bishops. — W. Somerset Maugham

The Countess was considerably younger than her husband. All of her clothes came from Paris (this was after Paris) and she had superb taste. (This was after taste too, but only just. And since it was such a new thing, and since the Countess was the only lady in all Florin to posses it, is it any wonder she was the leading hostess in the land?) — William Goldman

Raimon was amused to see that the countess Carenza grew more beautiful by the day: her expression has softened and the pouches under her eyes had disappeared. She carried herself confidently, secure in the knowledge that she was fascinating to one pair of eyes at least. — Lisa Goldstein

Thomas Middleditch, 'Sir, you are brillant... ly disturbed! — Rocky Flintstone

Countess Nadasdy served the tea. Miss Tarabotti took hers with milk, Miss Dair took hers with lemon, and the vampires took theirs with a dollop of blood — Gail Carriger

Can you read my thoughts?" she asked them.
"Are you talking to me?" Lee said.
"To all of you. Can you read my thoughts?"
"What are you trying to do - get me sent to seclusion?"
"Go to hell", Helene said pleasantly.
"Don't look at me," Miss Coral said, with the genteel horror of a countess visiting an abattoir, "I can't even read my own. — Joanne Greenberg

Try it for your father, dear," said the Countess. "Quickly, before it congeals. — Terry Pratchett

The difference between weakness and wickedness is much less than people suppose; and the consequences are nearly always the same. — Marguerite Gardiner, Countess Of Blessington

Writer Somerset Maugham, after his parents deaths, spent a few stultifying years in his uncle's vicarage. Later, in his teens at a boarding-school, having lost his belief in the existence of God said: "The whole horrible structure, based not on the love of God, but on the fear of hell, tumbled down like a house of cards." — Selina Hastings, Countess Of Huntingdon

Well then, I have a question for you. Lady Helen insists that in taking you for a husband, she is not marrying down. Do you agree?"
Rhys glanced at Helen, his eyes warm. "No," he said. "Every man marries above himself."
"Do you believe, then, that she should wed a man of noble pedigree?"
Returning his attention to the countess, Rhys hitched his shoulders in a nonchalant shrug. "Lady Helen is so far above all men that none of us deserve her. Therefore, it might as well be me. — Lisa Kleypas

As for the momentary madness which had fallen upon him on the eve of his marriage, he had trained himself to regard it as the last of his discarded experiments. The idea that he could ever, in his senses, have dreamed of marrying the Countess Olenska had become almost unthinkable, and she remained in his memory simply as the most plaintive and poignant of a line of ghosts.
But all these abstractions and eliminations made of his mind a rather empty and echoing place, and he supposed that was one of the reasons why the busy animated people on the Beaufort lawn shocked him as if they had been children playing in a grave-yard. — Edith Wharton

Love and enthusiasm are always ridiculous, when not reciprocated by their objects. — Marguerite Gardiner, Countess Of Blessington

Countess Bezukhova was present among other Russian ladies who had followed the sovereign from Petersburg to Vilna, and eclipsed the refined Polish ladies by her massive, so-called Russian, type of beauty. The Emperor noticed her, and honoured her with a dance. — Leo Tolstoy

She smiled serenely. "I shall put aside my feelings for the dowager countess if you care for one of her daughters ... " She looked up hopefully. "Do you care for one of her daughters?"
"I have no idea," Benedict admitted. "I never got her name. Just her glove."
Violet gave him a stern look. "I'm not even going to ask how you obtained her glove."
"It was all very innocent, I assure you."
Violet's expression was dubious in the extreme. "I have far too many sons to believe that," she muttered. — Julia Quinn

I would like to hear what the countess will say when she is told that you intend to bring yet one more American into the family!"
"She'll have an apoplectic fit," Marcus replied calmly, tying her corset laces. "She'll go on a screaming tirade, at the end of which she'll probably faint. And then she'll go to the continent for six months, and refuse to write to any of us." Pausing, he added with relish, "How I'm looking forward to it."

-Lillian & Marcus — Lisa Kleypas

Countess Bezukhova quite deserved her reputation of being a fascinating woman. She could say what she did not think - especially what was flattering - quite simply and naturally. — Leo Tolstoy

Flowers are the bright remembrances of youth; they waft us back, with their bland odorous breath, the joyous hours that only young life knows, ere we have learnt that this fair earth hides graves. — Marguerite Gardiner, Countess Of Blessington

Women excel more in literary judgment than in literary production,
they are better critics than authors. — Marguerite Gardiner, Countess Of Blessington

Happiness is a rare plant that seldom takes root on earth-few ever enjoyed it, except for a brief period; the search after it is rarely rewarded by the discovery, but there is an admirable substitute for it ... a contented spirit. — Marguerite Gardiner, Countess Of Blessington

Like most geniuses, the Countess was a very limited person. Sigmund Freud was so ignorant of the art that Surrealist painters had to explain then- use of Freudian symbols over and over again, and he still didn't get it. Einstein never could remember to take the biscuits out of oven. Those same forces that drive a genius to create things or ideas that entertain or enlighten us often gobble so much of his personality that he has none left for the social graces (Should you invite Van Gogh to your home he might stand on your sofa in his muddy boots and pee where he pleased), and the very act of creation requires such focused concentration that vast areas of knowledge may be completely overlooked. Well, so what? There is no evidence that generalized skills are in any way superior to specialized brilliance, and certainly that sputter less little candle. Same of the mediocre mind known as "common sense" has never produced anything worth celebrating. — Tom Robbins

Sure there's different roads from this to Dungarvan* - some thinks one road pleasanter, and some think another; wouldn't it be mighty foolish to quarrel for this? - and sure isn't it twice worse to thry to interfere with people for choosing the road they like best to heaven? — Marguerite Gardiner, Countess Of Blessington

Praise is the only gift for which people are really grateful. Marguerite, Countess of Blessington I praise loudly; I blame softly. — Catherine The Great

These days, Countess, every cabbage has its pimp. — Jean Giradoux

There are some chagrins of the heart which a friend ought to try to console without betraying a knowledge of their existence, as there are physical maladies which a physician ought to seek to heal without letting the sufferer know that he has discovered their extent. — Marguerite Gardiner, Countess Of Blessington

All women, from the countess to the cook-maid, are put into high good humor with themselves when a man is taken with them at firstsight. And be they ever so plain, they will find twenty good reasons to defend the judgment of such a man. — Samuel Richardson