Quote collection
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"But how little we know what would make paradise for our neighbours! We judge from our own desires, and our neighbours themselves are not always open enough even to throw out a hint of theirs."
"When the animals entered the Ark in pairs, one may imagine that allied species made much private remark on each other, and were tempted to think that so many forms feeding on the same store of fodder were eminently superfluous, as tending to diminish the rations."
"Brothers are so unpleasant."
"When you get me a good man made out of arguments, I will get you a good dinner with reading you the cookery book."
"If you are not proud of your cellar, there is no thrill of satisfaction in seeing your guest hold up his wineglass to the light and look judicial."
"Expenditure--like ugliness and errors--becomes a totally new thing when we attach our own personality to it, and measure it by that wide difference which is manifest (in our own sensations) between ourselves and others."
"What people do who go into politics I can't think; it drives me almost mad to see mismanagement over only a few hundred acres."
"Our sense of duty must often wait for some work which shall take the place of dilettanteism [sic] and make us feel that the quality of our action is not a matter of indifference."
"When I married Humphrey I made up my mind to like sermons, and I set out by liking the end very much. That soon spread to the middle and the beginning, because I couldn't have the end without them."
"There is a sort of human paste that when it comes near the fire of enthusiasm is only baked into harder shape."
"In Rome it seems as if there were so many things which are more wanted in the world than pictures."
"We are overhasty to speak as if God did not manifest himself by our silent feeling, and make his love felt through ours."
"The select natures who pant after the ideal, and find nothing in pantaloons or petticoats great enough to command their reverence and love, are curiously in unison with the narrowest and pettiest."
"To most mortals there is a stupidity which is unendurable and a stupidity which is altogether acceptable - else, indeed, what would become of social bonds?"
"But, bless us, things may be lovable that are not altogether handsome, I hope?"
"... happy husbands and wives can hear each other say the same thing over and over again without being tired."
"I am feeling easy now, and you will well understand that after undergoing pain this ease is opening paradise. Invalids must be excused for being eloquent about themselves."
"The perpetual mourner -- the grief that can never be healed -- is innocently enough felt to be wearisome by the rest of the world. And my sense of desolation increases. Each day seems a new beginning -- a new acquaintance with grief."
"Letter-writing I imagine is counted as 'work' from which you must abstain, and I scribble this letter simply from the self-satisfied notion that you will like to hear from me. You see, I have asked no questions, which are the torture-screws of correspondence. Hence you have nothing to answer."
"... as usual I am suffering much from doubt as to the worth of what I am doing and fear lest I may not be able to complete it so as to make it a contribution to literature and not a mere addition to the heap of books."