magnificence quotes

You can scarcely imagine the beauty and magnificence of the buildings we burnt.

-James Bruce Elgin
  Letter,18  Aug. Quoted in Nigel Cameron Barbarians and Mandarins (1989), ch.16.

Thus you see, Sir, that these people are not so unpolished as we represent them.'Tis true, their magnificence is of a different taste from ours, and perhaps of a better. I am almost of opinion, they have a right notion of life. They consume it in music, gardens, wine, and delicate eating, while we are tormenting our brains with some scheme of politics, or studying some sciencetowhichwe canneverattain, or, if we do, cannot persuade other people to set that value upon it we do ourselves† We die or grow old before we can reap the fruit of our labours.Considering what short-lived weak animals men are, is there any study so beneficial as the study of present pleasure?

- Lady Mary Wortley ne  e Pierrepoint Montagu
c.1716  Collected in Lord Wharncliffe (ed)  The Letters and Works of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1837).