Top 35 Margaret Cavendish Quotes (2024 Update)

1. “I would rather die in the adventure of noble achievements than live in obscure and sluggish security.”

— Margaret Cavendish

2. “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

3. “I think a bad husband is far worse than no husband...”

— Margaret Cavendish

4. “For Pleasure, Delight, Peace and Felicity live in method and temperance.”

— Margaret Cavendish

5. “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

6. “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

7. “First, they were bred when I was not capable to observe or before I was born; likewise the breeding of men is of a different manner from that of women.”

— Margaret Cavendish

8. “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

9. “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

10. “Prosperity is like perfume, it often makes the head ache.”

— Margaret Cavendish

11. “For disorder obstructs: besides, it doth disgust life, distract the appetities, and yield no true relish to the senses.”

— Margaret Cavendish

12. “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

13. “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

14. “Besides, said they, a Monarchy is a divine form of Government, and agrees most with our Religion: For as there is but one God, whom we all unanimously worship and adore with one Faith; so we are resolved to have but one Emperor, to whom we all submit with one obedience.”

— Margaret Cavendish

15. “Marriage is the grave or tomb of wit.”

— Margaret Cavendish

16. “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

17. “For Nature is so full of variety, that our weak Senses cannot perceive all the various sorts of her Creatures; neither is there any one object perceptible by all our Senses, no more then several objects are by one sense.”

— Margaret Cavendish

18. “Everyone’s conscience in religion is between God and themselves, and it belongs to none other.”

— Margaret Cavendish

19. “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

20. “By which we may see, that Novelty discomposes the mind, but acquaintance settles it in peace and tranquillity.”

— Margaret Cavendish

21. “A judge, replied the Empress, is easy to be had, but to get an impartial judge, is a thing so difficult.”

— Margaret Cavendish

22. “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

23. “That this multitude of pores was the cause of the blackness of the Coal; for, said they, a body that has so many pores, from each of which no light is reflected, must necessarily look black, since black is nothing else but a privation of light, or a want of reflection.”

— Margaret Cavendish

24. “Women’s Tongues are as sharp as two-edged Swords, and wound as much, when they are anger’d.”

— Margaret Cavendish

25. “At which the Emperor rejoycing, made her his Wife, and gave her an absolute power to rule and govern all that World as she pleased.”

— Margaret Cavendish

26. “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

27. “Nevertheless, although they were thinner then the thinnest vapour, yet were they not so thin as the body of air, or else they would not be perceptible by animal sight.”

— Margaret Cavendish

28. “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

29. “As for plenty, we had not only for necessity, conveniency and decency, but for delight and pleasure to superfluity.”

— Margaret Cavendish

30. “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

31. “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

32. “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

33. “Adventure, and not being provided for so cold a Voyage, were all frozen to death; the young Lady onely, by the light of her Beauty, the heat of her Youth, and Protection of the Gods, remaining alive: Neither was it a wonder that the men did freeze to death; for they were not onely driven to the very end or point of the Pole of that World, but even to another Pole of another World, which.”

— Margaret Cavendish

34. “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

35. “Indeed I had not much wit, yet I was not an idiot – my wit was according to my years.”

— Margaret Cavendish

36. “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