Date: 1724

"In short, every thing we do, you construe to your own advantage: if we look easy and pleas'd in your Company, we are certainly in Love; if grave and reserv'd, 'tis to hide our Love; thus you all imagine we are fond of gaining a Conquest over a Heart, which when we have got it, is perhaps so very...

— Davys, Mary (1674-1732)

Date: 1724

"If I have here touch'd a young Lady's Vanity and Levity, it was to show her how beautiful she is without those Blots, which certainly stain the Mind, and stamp Deformity where the greatest Beauties would shine, were they banish'd."

— Davys, Mary (1674-1732)

Date: 1724

"Vanity is a lurking subtile Thief, that works itself insensibly into our Bosoms, and while we declare our dislike to it, know not 'tis so near us; every body being (as a witty Gentleman has somewhere said) provided with a Racket to strike it from themselves."

— Davys, Mary (1674-1732)

Date: 1724

A "Man that wou'd please [a pedant], must pore an Age over musty Authors, till his Brains are as worm-eaten as the Books he reads, and his Conversation fit for no body else"

— Davys, Mary (1674-1732)

Date: 1724

"Her Heart was like a great Inn, which finds room for all that come."

— Davys, Mary (1674-1732)

Date: 1724

"Madam, of what use is our Reason, if we chain it up when we most want it?"

— Davys, Mary (1674-1732)

Date: 1725

"I wou'd have all those soft-hearted Ladies that are impress'd like Wax, read Quevedo's 'Vision of Loving-Fools.'"

— Davys, Mary (1674-1732)

Date: 1725

"I will give you the saddest Account you have ever yet been entertain'd with; but you must wrap your Heart in a Case of Adamant, or it will melt away in the hearing of it."

— Davys, Mary (1674-1732)

Date: 1725

"Cousin, said she, you have very much surpriz'd me with what you have said, I thought I shou'd have been very secure from the Importunities of Love, while I was with you, since you have always express'd the greatest dislike to it; but I flatter myself, that all you have said, has been only to try...

— Davys, Mary (1674-1732)

Date: 1725

"You shall not fly, Lorenzo, said Elvira, (whose Heart began to melt) you shall stay and be as happy as I can make you; Elvira shall keep her Promise, and do all you desire, as far as she has power; therefore call back all those wandring Thoughts, and fix them in my Breast for ever."

— Davys, Mary (1674-1732)