Women born before the 19th century

"Here I am once more in this scene of dissipation and vice, and I begin already to find my morals corrupted."

"What dreadful hot weather we have! It keeps one in a continual state of inelegance."

"Next week I shall begin my operations on my hat, on which you know my principal hopes of happiness depend."

"I am very much obliged to my dear little George for his message - for his love at least; his duty, I suppose, was only in consequence of some hint of my favorable intentions towards him from his father or mother. I am sincerely rejoiced, however, that I ever was born, since it has been the means of procuring him a dish of tea."

"I do not want people to be very agreeable, as it saves me the trouble of liking them a great deal."

"You deserve a longer letter than this; but it is my unhappy fate seldom to treat people so well as they deserve."

"I had a very pleasant evening, however, though you will probably find out that there was no particular reason for it; but I do not think it worth while to wait for enjoyment until there is some real opportunity for it."

"She would tell you herself that she has a very dreadful cold in her head at present; but I have not much compassion for colds in the head without fever or sore throat."

"I am rather impatient to know the fate of my best gown."

"I cannot help thinking that it is more natural to have flowers grow out of the head than fruit."

"I can recollect nothing more to say at present; perhaps breakfast may assist my ideas. I was deceived — my breakfast supplied only two ideas — that the rolls were good and the butter bad."

"In Paragon we met Mrs. Foley and Mrs. Dowdeswell with her yellow shawl airing out, and at the bottom of Kingsdown Hill we met a gentleman in a buggy, who, on minute examination, turned out to be Dr. Hall — and Dr. Hall in such very deep mourning that either his mother, his wife, or himself must be dead."

"Your abuse of our gowns amuses but does not discourage me; I shall take mine to be made up next week, and the more I look at it the better it pleases me. My cloak came on Tuesday, and, though I expected a good deal, the beauty of the lace astonished me. It is too handsome to be worn — almost too handsome to be looked at."

"I believe I drank too much wine last night at Hurstbourne; I know not how else to account for the shaking of my hand today. You will kindly make allowance therefore for any indistinctness of writing, by attributing it to this venial error."

"The General has got the gout, and Mrs. Maitland the jaundice. Miss Debary, Susan, and Sally, all in black, but without any stature, made their appearance, and I was as civil to them as their bad breath would allow me."

"We have been exceedingly busy ever since you went away. In the first place we have had to rejoice two or three times everyday at your having such very delightful weather for the whole of your journey..."

"I have now attained the true art of letter-writing, which we are always told, is to express on paper exactly what one would say to the same person by word of mouth."

"You are very kind in planning presents for me to make, and my mother has shown me exactly the same attention; but as I do not choose to have generosity dictated to me, I shall not resolve on giving my cabinet to Anna till the first thought of it has been my own."

"Another stupid party last night; perhaps if larger they might be less intolerable, but here there were only just enough to make one card-table, with six people to look on and talk nonsense to each other."

"Mrs. B. and two young women were of the same party, except when Mrs. B. thought herself obliged to leave them to run round the room after her drunken husband. His avoidance, and her pursuit, with the probable intoxication of both, was an amusing scene."

"I cannot anyhow continue to find people agreeable; I respect Mrs. Chamberlayne for doing her hair well, but cannot feel a more tender sentiment. Miss Langley is like any other short girl, with a broad nose and wide mouth, fashionable dress and exposed bosom. Adm. Stanhope is a gentleman-like man, but then his legs are too short and his tail too long."

"It would have amused you to see our progress. We went up by Sion Hill, and returned across the fields. In climbing a hill Mrs. Chamberlayne is very capital; I could with difficulty keep pace with her, yet would not flinch for the world. On plain ground I was quite her equal. And so we posted away under a fine hot sun, she without any parasol or any shade to her hat, stopping for nothing, and crossing the churchyard at Weston with as much expedition as if we were afraid of being buried alive."

"We are to have a tiny party here tonight. I hate tiny parties, they force one into constant exertion."

"You will have a great deal of unreserved discourse with Mrs. K., I dare say, upon this subject, as well as upon many other of our family matters. Abuse everybody but me."

"Our little visitor has just left us, and left us highly pleased with her; she is a nice, natural, open-hearted, affectionate girl, with all the ready civility which one sees in the best children in the present day; so unlike anything that I was myself at her age, that I am often all astonishment and shame."

"You know how interesting the purchase of a sponge-cake is to me."

"The pleasures of friendship, of unreserved conversation, of similarity of taste and opinions will make good amends for orange wine."

"We spent Friday evening with our friends at the boarding-house, and our curiosity was gratified by the sight of their fellow-inmates, Mrs. Drew and Miss Hook, Mr. Wynne and Mr. Fitzhugh; the latter is brother to Mrs. Lance, and very much the gentleman. He has lived in that house more than twenty years, and poor man, is so totally deaf that they say he could not hear a cannon, were it fired close to him; having no cannon at hand to make the experiment, I took it for granted, and talked to him a little with my fingers, which was funny enough."

"I am gratified by her having pleasure in what I write, but I wish the knowledge of my being exposed to her discerning criticism may not hurt my style, by inducing too great a solicitude. I begin already to weigh my words and sentences more than I did, and am looking about for a sentiment, an illustration, or a metaphor in every corner of the room. Could my ideas flow as fast as the rain in the store-closet it would be charming."

"I am sorry to tell you that I am getting very extravagant, and spending all my money, and, what is worse for you, I have been spending yours too."

"I give you joy of our new nephew, and hope if he ever comes to be hanged it will not be till we are too old to care about it."

"My head-dress was a bugle-band like the border to my gown, and a flower of Mrs Tilson's. I depended upon hearing something of the evening from Mr. W. K., and am very well satisfied with his notice of me — "A pleasing looking young woman" — that must do; one cannot pretend to anything better now; thankful to have it continued a few years longer!"

"How horrible it is to have so many people killed! And what a blessing that one cares for none of them!"

"I will not say that your mulberry-trees are dead, but I am afraid they are not alive."

"Mr. Digweed has used us basely. Handsome is as handsome does; he is therefore a very ill-looking man."

"Let me know when you begin the new tea, and the new white wine. My present elegancies have not yet made me indifferent to such matters. I am still a cat if I see a mouse."

"He seems a very harmless sort of young man, nothing to like or dislike in him — goes out shooting or hunting with the two others all the morning, and plays at whist and makes queer faces in the evening."

"By the bye, as I must leave off being young, I find many douceurs in being a sort of chaperon, for I am put on the sofa near the fire and can drink as much wine as I like."

"I cannot help hoping that many will feel themselves obliged to buy it. I shall not mind imagining it a disagreeable duty to them, so as they do it."

"Devereux Forester's being ruined by his vanity is extremely good, but I wish you would not let him plunge into a "vortex of dissipation." I do not object to the thing, but I cannot bear the expression; it is such thorough novel slang, and so old that I daresay Adam met with it in the first novel he opened."

"Walter Scott has no business to write novels, especially good ones. It is not fair. He has fame and profit enough as a poet, and should not be taking the bread out of other people's mouths. I do not like him, and do not mean to like Waverley if I can help it, but fear I must."

"The Webbs are really gone! When I saw the waggons at the door, and thought of all the trouble they must have in moving, I began to reproach myself for not having liked them better, but since the waggons have disappeared my conscience has been closed again, and I am excessively glad they are gone."

"The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts."

"There are such beings in the world — perhaps one in a thousand — as the creature you and I should think perfection; where grace and spirit are united to worth, where the manners are equal to the heart and understanding; but such a person may not come in your way, or, if he does, he may not be the eldest son of a man of fortune, the near relation of your particular friend, and belonging to your own county."

"His having been in love with the aunt gives Cecilia an additional interest with him. I like the idea — a very proper compliment to an aunt! I rather imagine indeed that nieces are seldom chosen but out of compliment to some aunt or another. I daresay Ben [Anna's husband] was in love with me once, and would never have thought of you if he had not supposed me dead of scarlet fever."

"I wish I could finish stories as fast as you can. I am much obliged to you for the sight of Olivia, and think you have done for her very well; but the good-for-nothing father, who was the real author of all her faults and sufferings, should not escape unpunished. I hope he hung himself, or took the surname of Bone or underwent some direful penance or other."

"I am quite honoured by your thinking me capable of drawing such a clergyman as you gave the sketch of in your note of Nov. 16th. But I assure you I am not. The comic part of the character I might be equal to, but not the good, the enthusiastic, the literary. Such a man's conversation must at times be on subjects of science and philosophy, of which I know nothing; or at least be occasionally abundant in quotations and allusions which a woman who, like me, knows only her own mother-tongue, and has read little in that, would be totally without the power of giving. A classical education, or at any rate a very extensive acquaintance with English literature, ancient and modern, appears to me quite indispensable for the person who would do any justice to your clergyman; and I think I may boast myself to be, with all possible vanity, the most unlearned and uninformed female who ever dared to be an authoress."

"He and I should not in the least agree, of course, in our ideas of novels and heroines. Pictures of perfection, as you know, make me sick and wicked; but there is some very good sense in what he says, and I particularly respect him for wishing to think well of all young ladies; it shows an amiable and a delicate mind. And he deserves better treatment than to be obliged to read any more of my works."

"I could no more write a romance than an epic poem. I could not sit seriously down to write a serious romance under any other motive than to save my life; and if it were indispensable for me to keep it up and never relax into laughing at myself or other people, I am sure I should be hung before I had finished the first chapter. No, I must keep to my own style and go on in my own way; and though I may never succeed again in that, I am convinced that I should totally fail in any other."

"We saw a countless number of post-chaises full of boys pass by yesterday morning — full of future heroes, legislators, fools, and villains. You have never thanked me for my last letter, which went by the cheese. I cannot bear not to be thanked."

"I give you joy of having left Winchester. Now you may own how miserable you were there; now it will gradually all come out, your crimes and your miseries — how often you went up by the Mail to London and threw away fifty guineas at a tavern, and how often you were on the point of hanging yourself, restrained only, as some ill-natured aspersion upon poor old Winton has it, by the want of a tree within some miles of the city."

"What should I do with your strong, manly, spirited sketches, full of variety and glow? How could I possibly join them on to the little bit (two inches wide) of ivory on which I work with so fine a brush, as produces little effect after much labour?"

"I would recommend to her and Mr. D. the simple regimen of separate rooms."

"Single women have a dreadful propensity for being poor, which is one very strong argument in favour of matrimony."

"Many thanks for your kind care for my health; I certainly have not been well for many weeks, and about a week ago I was very poorly. I have had a good deal of fever at times, and indifferent nights; but I am considerably better now and am recovering my looks a little, which have been bad enough — black and white, and every wrong colour. I must not depend upon being ever very blooming again. Sickness is a dangerous indulgence at my time of life."

"I know no better way, my dearest Edward, of thanking you for your affectionate concern for me during my illness than by telling you myself, as soon as possible, that I continue to get better. I will not boast of my handwriting; neither that nor my face have yet recovered their proper beauty, but in other respects I am gaining strength very fast. I am now out of bed from 9 in the morning to 10 at night: upon the sofa, 'tis true, but I eat my meals with Aunt Cass in a rational way, and can employ myself, and walk from one room to another. Mr. Lyford says he will cure me, and if he fails, I shall draw up a memorial and lay it before the Dean and Chapter, and have no doubt of redress from that pious, learned, and disinterested body."

"There is nothing I would not do for those who are really my friends. I have no notion of loving people by halves, it is not my nature."

"Sophia shrieked and fainted on the ground—I screamed and instantly ran mad! We remained thus mutually deprived of our senses some minutes, and on regaining them were deprived of them again. For an hour and a quarter did we continue in this unfortunate situation."

"It was in this reign that Joan of Arc reigned and made such a row among the English."

"There were several Battles between the Yorkists and the Lancastrians, in which the former (as they ought) usually won."

"She [Mary I] married Philip King of Spain, who in her sister's reign, was famous for building Armadas."

"I am afraid", replied Elinor, "that the pleasantness of an employment does not always evince its propriety."

"People always live forever when there is an annuity to be paid them."

"It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife."

"To be fond of dancing was a certain step towards falling in love."

"Happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance."

"One cannot be always laughing at a man without now and then stumbling on something witty."

"For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbors and laugh at them in our turn?"

"The pride of any mother is to give birth to a responsible and successful child."

"One does not love a place the less for having suffered in it, unless it has been all suffering, nothing but suffering."

"A lady, without a family, was the very best preserver of furniture in the world."

"It was, perhaps, one of those cases in which advice is good or bad only as the event decides."

"I must learn to brook being happier than I deserve."

"A large income is the best recipe for happiness I ever heard of."

"An engaged woman is always more agreeable than a disengaged. She is satisfied with herself. Her cares are over, and she feels that she may exert all her powers of pleasing without suspicion. All is safe with a lady engaged: no harm can be done."

"We do not look in great cities for our best morality."

"She was of course only too good for him; but as nobody minds having what is too good for them, he was very steadily earnest in the pursuit of the blessing..."

"I speak what appears to me the general opinion; and where an opinion is general, it is usually correct."

"Let other pens dwell on guilt and misery."

"I shall soon be rested," said Fanny; "to sit in the shade on a fine day, and look upon verdure, is the most perfect refreshment."

"it will, I believe, be everywhere found, that as the clergy are, or are not what they ought to be, so are the rest of the nation."

"It is a lovely night, and they are much to be pitied who have not been taught to feel, in some degree, as you do; who have not, at least, been given a taste for Nature in early life. They lose a great deal."

"But there certainly are not so many men of large fortune in the world as there are pretty women to deserve them."

"Of various admirals I could tell you a great deal: of them and their flags, and the gradation of their pay, and their bickerings and jealousies. But, in general, I can assure you that they are all passed over, and all very ill used. Certainly, my home at my uncle’s brought me acquainted with a circle of admirals. Of Rears and Vices I saw enough. Now do not be suspecting me of a pun, I entreat."

"One half of the world cannot understand the pleasures of the other."

"Business, you know, may bring money, but friendship hardly ever does."

"...why did we wait for any thing? — why not seize the pleasure at once? — How often is happiness destroyed by preparation, foolish preparation!"

"Human nature is so well disposed towards those who are in interesting situations, that a young person, who either marries or dies, is sure of being kindly spoken of."

"Surprizes are foolish things. The pleasure is not enhanced, and the inconvenience is often considerable."

"There are people who the more you do for them, the less they will do for themselves."

"Ah! there is nothing like staying at home for real comfort."

"One has not great hopes from Birmingham. I always say there is something direful in the sound..."

"To look almost pretty is an acquisition of higher delight to a girl who has been looking plain for the first fifteen years of her life than a beauty from her cradle can ever receive."

"A woman especially, if she has the misfortune of knowing anything, should conceal it as well as she can."

"Could they be perpetrated without being known, in a country like this, where social and literary intercourse is on such a footing, where every man is surrounded by a neighbourhood of voluntary spies, and where roads and newspapers lay everything open?"

"...from politics, it was an easy step to silence."

"It would be mortifying to the feelings of many ladies, could they be made to understand how little the heart of man is affected by what is costly or new in their attire."

"A very short trial convinced her that a curricle was the prettiest equipage in the world"

"The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel must be intolerably stupid"

"What could I do! Facts are such horrid things!"

"Life seems but a quick succession of busy nothings."

"You could not shock her more than she shocks me; Beside her Joyce seems innocent as grass. It makes me most uncomfortable to see An English spinster of the middle class Describe the amorous effects of "brass," Reveal so frankly and with such sobriety The economic basis of society."

"As she grew up, the politics of the day occupied very little of her attention, but she probably shared the feeling of moderate Toryism which prevailed in her family. She was well acquainted with the old periodicals from the 'Spectator' downwards. Her knowledge of Richardson's works was such as no one is likely again to acquire, now that the multitude and the merits of our light literature have called off the attention of readers from that great master. Every circumstance narrated in Sir Charles Grandison, all that was ever said or done in the cedar parlour, was familiar to her; and the wedding days of Lady L. and Lady G. were as well remembered as if they had been living friends. Amongst her favourite writers, Johnson in prose, Crabbe in verse, and Cowper in both, stood high."

"I now desire to offer a few observations on them [the novels], and especially on one point, on which my age renders me a competent witness—the fidelity with which they represent the opinions and manners of the class of society in which the author lived early in this century. They do this the more faithfully on account of the very deficiency with which they have been sometimes charged—namely, that they make no attempt to raise the standard of human life, but merely represent it as it was. They certainly were not written to support any theory or inculcate any particular moral, except indeed the great moral which is to be equally gathered from an observation of the course of actual life—namely, the superiority of high over low principles, and of greatness over littleness of mind."

"Jane Austen? I feel that I am approaching dangerous ground. The reputation of Jane Austen is surrounded by cohorts of defenders who are ready to do murder for their sacred cause. They are nearly all fanatics. They will not listen. If anyone “went for” Jane, anything might happen to him. He would assuredly be called on to resign from his clubs...I do not even agree that Jane was a great novelist. She was a great little novelist. She is marvellous, intoxicating: she has unique wit, vast quantities of common sense, a most agreeable sense of proportion, much narrative skill. And she is always readable. But her world is a tiny world, and even of that tiny world she ignores, consciously or unconsciously, the fundamental factors. She did not know enough of the world to be a great novelist. She had not the ambition to be a great novelist. She knew her place; her present “fans” do not know her place, and their antics would without doubt have excited Jane's lethal irony."

"Jane Austen … provides, at scores of points, a commentary that corrects any naive over-identification that we are tempted to commit. … Many readers have resisted that corrective. … Critics have often objected, for example, to the presence of a persistent voice that could allow itself, at what conventionally should have been the moment of supreme passion, to undermine the conventional effects with the famous (or infamous) narrative intrusion. … Some readers have considered such passages to be dodges, signs of Austen's own sexual inhibitions or lack of novelistic skill. … I suggest instead that they are signs of a novelist who knows her double task: how to abide by the demands of a conventional form, while making the whole thing work for matters unconventional."

"[M]ost of us, male and female, are as children compared with this one glorious human being."

"[T]he power of the realized conventional form, the delicious happiness Austen makes us feel, must surely be counteracted by a kind of inquiry that is as courageous and sensitive and resistant as Austen's reading of her own predecessors. She knew better than to pretend that powerful fictions are not dangerous. She thus would welcome, I like to think, the probing questions that feminist critics have been teaching us to ask. Her kind of critical spirit, applied … to her kind of works, will not leave those works unmodified. But to me it is reassuring to discover that most of the modifications, most of what we learn by asking the questions raised by feminist critics, leave Jane Austen looking perhaps even greater than she did before."

"In all her novels, though in varying degrees, Jane Austen regards the characters, good and bad alike, with ironical amusement, because they never see the situation as it really is and as she sees it. This is the deeper source of our unbroken pleasure in reading her. We constantly share her point of view, and are aware of the amusing difference between the fact and its appearance to the actors. If you fail to perceive and enjoy this, you are not really reading Jane Austen. Some readers do not perceive it, and therefore fail to appreciate her. Others perceive it without enjoying it, and they think her cynical. She is never cynical, and not often merely satirical. A cynic or a mere satirist may be intellectually pleased by human absurdities and illusions, but he does not feel them to be good. But to Jane Austen, so far as they are not seriously harmful, they are altogether pleasant, because they are both ridiculous and right."

"Why do you like Miss Austen so very much? I am puzzled on that point. … I read that sentence of yours, and then I got the book. And what did I find? An accurate daguerreotyped portrait of a commonplace (everyday) face; carefully fenced, highly cultivated garden, with neat borders and delicate flowers; but no glance of bright vivid physiognomy, no open country, no fresh air, no blue hill, no bonny beck. I should hardly like to live with her ladies and gentlemen, in their elegant but confined houses."

"The essence of her certainty is that the reforms she perceives to be necessary are within the attitudes of individuals; she calls for no general changes in the world of the established lesser landed gentry. … Her distinctions between true gentlemanliness and the shell of it are keen, perhaps because—like Elizabeth Bennet—she has experienced social rebuffs at first hand. She is certainly no sycophant of wealth or rank, and she does not deal intimately with—or apparently much like—the great aristocracy. The class she deals with has local and not national importance: in eighteenth-century terms, she is a Tory rather than a Whig. She believes that the gentleman—as her words "consequence" and "usefulness" imply—derives his personal dignity from the contributions he makes at the head of an organic, hierarchical, small community. It is for such a community, ideally perceived, that her novels speak... Jane Austen's novels belong decisively to one class of partisan novels, the conservative. Intellectually she is orthodox... Her important innovations are technical and stylistic modifications within a clearly defined and accepted genre."

"The daughter and sister of clergymen of the Established Church, she began life in the conservative fold, and even as a teenager was the author of a satire on sensibility, Love and Friendship. Two of her first completed novels, Sense and Sensibility and Northanger Abbey … display broadly the typical attitudes of the feminine type of conservative novel... The key issue on which virtue is distinguished from vice is the choice of a marriage-partner. The key virtues are prudence and concern for the evidence; the vices are romanticism, self-indulgence, conceit, and, for Jane Austen, other subtle variations upon the broad anti-jacobin target of individualism. … [T]hese last three novels reveal a sense of a hazard to the larger community which distinguishes them from the earlier group: the heroine's ethical choices no longer solely affect her private happiness in life, but are subtly interlinked with the stability and well-being of her society. In this too they reflect the broadening and deepening of range given to the conservative cause in the years 1797–8 by the critical turn in the war, and by the articulate leadership of The Anti-Jacobin. Whatever their actual date of composition, they belong generically, like all Jane Austen's works, to a movement that defines itself by its opposition to revolution."

"[I]n Northanger Abbey Jane Austen develops...her version of the revolutionary character, the man or woman who by acting on a system of selfishness, threatens friends of more orthodox principles; and ultimately, through cold-blooded cynicism in relation to the key social institution of marriage, threatens human happiness at a very fundamental level. Isabella Thorpe, Lady Susan, Mary Crawford, all like Isabella pursue the modern creed of self, and as such are Jane Austen's reinterpretation of a standard figure of the period, the desirable, amoral woman whose activities threaten manners and morals. … That Jane Austen is perfectly clear what she is doing can be demonstrated by identifying the same cluster of themes and characters in Sense and Sensibility. Inheriting a set of conservative dogmas, and some impossibly theatrical characters—notably the revolutionary villain—already in her first two full-length novels she produces a more natural equivalent, on a scale appropriate to comedy. Her villains are not only better art than her rivals'; they are also better propaganda. … Her selfish characters are consistently smaller and meaner than their orthodox opponents, the heroines; they are restricted within the bounds of their own being, and their hearts and minds are impoverished. Jane Austen's achievement, the feat of the subtlest technician among the English novelists, is to rethink the material of the conservative novel in terms that are at once naturalistic and intellectually consistent."

"Jane Austen has been criticized as trivial by the same enlightened race of critics as think her incapable of depicting passion. But such a criticism reveals a complete failure to grasp the convention within which her art is constructed. For aesthetic reasons she limits herself, as we have seen, to the mood of comedy and the world of the small gentry in England. But comedy can deal, and always has since the days of the Greeks, with themes as important and significant as those of tragedy: while the life of an English Squire's wife is as serious as the life of any one else: it can no more avoid the central problems that face mankind during its sojourn on this planet. The visible structure of Jane Austen's stories may be flimsy enough; but their, foundations drive deep down into the basic principles of human conduct. On her bit of ivory she has engraved a criticism of life as serious and as considered as Hardy's."

"Comedy was implicit in the manner in which she told her story. Her irony, her delicate ruthless irony, was of the substance of her style. It never obtruded itself; sometimes it only glinted out in a turn of phrase. But it was never absent for more than a paragraph; and her most straightforward piece of exposition was tart with its perfume."

"Jane Austen influenced me very much in a general way. I read her early with great pleasure and often since, and I think it's the, it's the tone is what I've liked about her, very cool, amused, but not ill-tempered tone. What I liked so very much about her is that she's quite ruthless in pointing out weaknesses and making fun, but she never seems in a bad temper, wishing to do down the characters, and I find this very agreeable – this sort of ruthless, good tempered, just, humorous outlook. I also like the mixture of her rather tough, robust judgement combined with a silvery, elegant refinement of manner. I think this contrast between the delicacy of the manner and the robustness of the judgement is very sympathetic to me."

"[A]s her would-be biographer, I had to face the fact that information about Jane Austen the woman was limited and fragmentary. She remains for me – as no doubt she would have wished – not an intimate but an acquaintance."

"Miss Austen's language deserves closer attention than it has received. She is not indeed one of the great writers of English prose of the early nineteenth century; but she is one of the greatest, because one of the most accurate, writers of dialogue of her own or any age; and of the writers of her period who furnish good and abundant specimens of polite conversation, she is to-day by far the most popular."

"Jane Austen was born before those bonds which (we are told) protected women from truth, were burst by the Brontës or elaborately untied by George Eliot. Yet the fact remains that Jane Austen knew more about men than either of them. Jane Austen may have been protected from truth: but it was precious little of truth that was protected from her."

"She knew what she knew, like a sound dogmatist: she did not know what she did not — like a sound agnostic."

"This is something more than the discovery of a document; it is the discovery of an inspiration. And that inspiration was the inspiration of Gargantua and of Pickwick; it was the gigantic inspiration of laughter."

"I am at a loss to understand why people hold Miss Austen's novels at so high a rate, which seem to me vulgar in tone, sterile in invention, imprisoned in the wretched conventions of English society, without genius, wit, or knowledge of the world. Never was life so pinched & narrow. The one problem in the mind of the writer in both the stories I have read, "Persuasion," and "Pride & Prejudice," is marriageableness. All that interests in any character introduced is still this one, Has he or she money to marry with, & conditions conforming? 'Tis "the nympholepsy of a fond despair," say rather, of an English boarding-house. Suicide is more respectable."

"I read Madame Bovary and Jane Austen and George Eliot over and over."

"Why do the characters in Jane Austen give us a slightly new pleasure each time they come in, as opposed to the merely repetitive pleasure that is caused by a character in Dickens? Why do they combine so well in a conversation, and draw one another out, without seeming to do so, and never perform? The answer to this question can be put in several ways; that, unlike Dickens, she was a real artist, that she never stooped to caricature, etc. But the best reply is that her characters, though smaller than his, are more highly organized. They function all round, and even if her plot made greater demands on them than it does, they would still be adequate."

"Perhaps my favorite English novelist is Jane Austen."

"I have been reading Miss Austen's Emma, which I had entirely forgotten, with the greatest enjoyment. I think it an admirable book, & I dare say you will agree with me. Miss Austen is an inimitable painter of quiet life. It would be difficult to say where the interest of Emma lies, yet it does interest strongly. There is no fine writing; no laboured description; no imaginative or ideal touches; no working on the feelings. Its magic must be its truth. It is exquisitely true. Life is presented to us, not as it may be taken in rare situations, in picturesque emergencies, but as we see it everyday. Common, workday life, with here & there a suit of best for Sundays. Yet there is nothing trivial. It is what Alfred calls in one of his unfinished poems "most ideal unideal, most uncommon commonplace." Dignity in the sentiments, dignity in the style. Quite a woman's book — (don't frown, Miss Fytche — I mean it for compliment) — none but a woman & a lady could possess that tact of minute observation, & that delicacy of sarcasm."

"Don't forget books. What would life be without them? Emily Brontë, Edgar Allan Poe, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Toni Morrison, Jane Austen, William Faulkner. Read the greats-they're great for a reason. They know how to chart the human soul. (p 32)"

"Which brings us again, after this long way about, to Jane Austen and her novels, and that troublesome question about them. She was great and they were beautiful, because she and they were honest, and dealt with nature nearly a hundred years ago as realism deals with it to-day. Realism is nothing more and nothing less than the truthful treatment of material, and Jane Austen was the first and the last of the English novelists to treat material with entire truthfulness. Because she did this, she remains the most artistic of the English novelists, and alone worthy to be matched with the great Scandinavian and Slavic and Latin artists."

"I read Pride and Prejudice when I was about 8 or 9. It was the first adult novel I read and it opened my imagination to the immense possibilities of the world of fiction and, young though I was, produced an immediate response to Jane Austen that has remained as strong today as it was 85 years ago and, I believe, helped to make me a writer."

"[T]he attempt to recruit Jane Austen into one of the armies in an ideological war is mistaken... It is indeed useful to compare her to her contemporaries...to confirm her originality and independence, and appreciate how distinctively absent ideology is from her fiction. She ranks not among those novelists like Tolstoy and George Eliot who are in some sense teachers or preachers, but among those like James and Proust, for whom the depiction and analysis of human beings in thought and action are enough. Or in different terms, she is of the school of Sophocles and Shakespeare, not that of Dante and Milton."

"Jane lies in Winchester — blessed be her shade! Praise the Lord for making her, and her for all she made! And while the stones of Winchester, or Milsom Street, remain, Glory, love, and honour unto England's Jane!"

"(“What do you owe Jane Austen?”) Endless pleasure. Years and years of delight. (“What did you learn from Jane Austen?”) A great deal about life. (“For example?”) I can't give you an example. You don't get fortune cookie maxims from a great novelist. You learn what life is like and what people are like."

"(“Chip Delany says that science fiction is as much a way of "reading" as it is a way of writing, and learn that. What is it that we have to learn?”) That's true for realism, too. You have to learn how to read Jane Austen. We have to learn how to read realistic fiction. A lot of people never do. Some of them, our fantasy readers, don't know how to read Thackeray, or any novels. They don't know what to expect, they don't know what the rewards are supposed to be."

"The delight derived from her pictures arises from our sympathy with ordinary characters, our relish of humor, and our intellectual pleasure in art for art's sake. But when it is admitted that she never stirs the deeper emotions, that she never fills the soul with a noble aspiration, or brightens it with a fine idea, but, at the utmost, only teaches us charity for the ordinary failings of ordinary people, and sympathy with their goodness, we have admitted an objection which lowers her claims to rank among the great benefactors of the race; and this sufficiently explains why, with all her excellence, her name has not become a household word. Her fame, we think, must endure. Such art as hers can never grow old, never be superseded. But, after all, miniatures are not frescoes, and her works are miniatures. Her place is among the Immortals; but the pedestal is erected in a quiet niche of the great temple."

"Shakespeare has had neither equal nor second. But among the writers who, in the point which we have noticed, have approached nearest to the manner of the great master, we have no hesitation in placing Jane Austen, a woman of whom England is justly proud. She has given us a multitude of characters, all, in a certain sense, commonplace, all such as we meet every day. Yet they are all as perfectly discriminated from each other as if they were the most eccentric of human beings... And almost all this is done by touches so delicate that they elude analysis, that they defy the powers of description, and that we know them to exist only by the general effect to which they have contributed."

"Something recalled to his mind the traits of character which are so delicately touched in Miss Austen's novels. "There was genius in the sketching out that new kind of novel." He was vexed for the credit of the Edinburgh Review, that it had left unnoticed; the Quarterly had done her more justice. It was impossible for a foreigner to understand fully the merit of her works. Madame de Staël, to whom he had recommended of her novels, found no interest in it, and, in her note to him in reply, said it was "vulgaire", and yet he said nothing could be more true than what he wrote in answer,—"there is no book which that word would suit so little." "Every village could furnish matter for a novel to Miss Austen. She did not need the common materials for a novel—strong passion, or strong incident.""

"When I was young, it was not thought proper for young ladies to study very conspicuously; and especially with pen in hand. Young ladies (at least in provincial towns) were expected to sit down in the parlour to sew,—during which reading aloud was permitted,—or to practice their music; but so as to be fit to receive callers, without any signs of blue‐stockingism which could be reported abroad. Jane Austen herself, the Queen of novelists, the immortal creator of Anne Elliott, Mr. Knightly, and a score or two more of unrivalled intimate friends of the whole public, was compelled by the feelings of her family to cover up her manuscripts with a large piece of muslin work, kept on the table for the purpose, whenever any genteel people came in. So it was with other young ladies, for some time after Jane Austen was in her grave; and thus my first studies in philosophy were carried on with great care and reserve."

"In her there are united, in rare combination, a sense of disillusionment and gaiety of temperament—it is the perception of the comic once more which reconciles the two."

"A rational wisdom, exceptional intellect, unique in wit, found herself in circumstances which were always meagre, and at times irrational; and endowed with fastidiousness on the one hand and enjoyment on the other, she employed her experience creatively in the service of Comedy. The novels are a vent."

"The want of elegance is almost the only want in Miss Austen. I have not read her ‘Mansfield Park;’ but it is impossible not to feel in every line of ‘Pride and Prejudice,’ in every word of ‘Elizabeth,’ the entire want of taste which could produce so pert, so worldly a heroine as the beloved of such a man as Darcy. Wickham is equally bad. Oh! they were just fit for each other, and I cannot forgive that delightful Darcy for parting them. Darcy should have married Jane. He is of all the admirable characters the best designed and the best sustained. I quite agree with you in preferring Miss Austen to Miss Edgeworth. If the former had a little more taste, a little more perception of the graceful, as well as of the humorous, I know not indeed any one to whom I should not prefer her. There is not of the hardness, the cold selfishness, of Miss Edgeworth about her writings; she is in a much better humour with the world; she preaches no sermons; she wants nothing but the beau-idéal of the female character to be a perfect novel writer; and perhaps even that beau-idéal would only be missed by such a petite maîtresse in books as myself."

"I have discovered that our great favourite, Miss Austen, is my countrywoman; that mamma knew all her family very intimately; and that she herself is an old maid (I beg her pardon – I mean a young lady) with whom mamma before her marriage was acquainted. Mamma says that she was then the prettiest, silliest, most affected, husband-hunting butterfly she ever remembers; and a friend of mine, who visits her now, says that she has stiffened into the most perpendicular, precise, taciturn piece of “single blessedness” that ever existed, and that, till ‘Pride and Prejudice’ showed what a precious gem was hidden in that unbending case, she was no more regarded in society than a poker or a fire-screen, or any other thin upright piece of wood or iron that fills its corner in peace and quietness. The case is very different now; she is still a poker – but a poker of whom every one is afraid. It must be confessed that this silent observation from such an observer is rather formidable. Most writers are good-humoured chatterers – neither very wise nor very witty: – but nine times out of ten (at least in the few that I have known) unaffected and pleasant, and quite removing by their conversation any awe that may have been excited by their works. But a wit, a delineator of character, who does not talk, is terrific indeed!"

"Her exquisite story of 'Persuasion' absolutely haunted me. Whenever it rained (and it did rain every day that I stayed in Bath, except one), I thought of Anne Elliott meeting Captain Wentworth, when driven by a shower to take refuge in a shoe-shop. Whenever I got out of breath in climbing up-hill (which, considering that one dear friend lived in Lansdown Crescent, and another on Beechen Cliff, happened also pretty often), I thought of that same charming Anne Elliott, and of that ascent from the lower town to the upper, during which all her tribulations ceased. And when at last, by dint of trotting up one street and down another, I incurred the unromantic calamity of a blister on the heel, even that grievance became classical by the recollection of the similar catastrophe, which, in consequence of her peregrinations with the Admiral, had befallen dear Mrs. Croft. I doubt if any one, even Scott himself, have left such perfect impressions of character and place as Jane Austen."

"the sharply stitched phrases of Jane Austen"

"In fact, though she lacked the bestowed, as of right, on her brothers, and claimed brightly to know nothing of 'science and philosophy', Jane Austen was better informed, and far better read, than most women of her day, having good French and some Italian, a love of history, considerable skill in both music and , and an extensive, intelligent knowledge of some of the greatest writers in the English language, from Johnson, Richardson and Fielding, to Goldsmith, Hume and Crabbe."

"Every housemaid expects at least once a week as much excitement as would have lasted a Jane Austen heroine throughout a whole novel."

"Also read again and for the third time at least Miss Austen's very finely written novel of Pride and Prejudice. That young lady had a talent for describing the involvement and feelings and characters of ordinary life which is to me the most wonderful I ever met with. The Big Bow-wow strain I can do myself like any now going, but the exquisite touch which renders ordinary commonplace things and characters interesting from the truth of the description and the sentiment is denied to me. What a pity such a gifted creature died so early!"

"You mention Miss Austen; her novels are more true to nature, and have (for my sympathies) passages of finer feeling than any others of this age. She was a person of whom I have heard so well, and think so highly, that I regret not having seen her, nor ever having had an opportunity of testifying to her the respect which I felt for her."

"Miss Austen was surely a great novelist. What she did, she did perfectly. Her work, as far as it goes, is faultless. She wrote of the times in which she lived, of the class of people with which she associated, and in the language which was usual to her as an educated lady. Of romance, -- what we generally mean when we speak of romance -- she had no tinge. Heroes and heroines with wonderful adventures there are none in her novels. Of great criminals and hidden crimes she tells us nothing. But she places us in a circle of gentlemen and ladies, and charms us while she tells us with an unconscious accuracy how men should act to women, and women act to men. It is not that her people are all good; -- and, certainly, they are not all wise. The faults of some are the anvils on which the virtues of others are hammered till they are bright as steel. In the comedy of folly I know no novelist who has beaten her. The letters of Mr. Collins, a clergyman in Pride and Prejudice, would move laughter in a low-church archbishop."

"Jane Austen's books, too, are absent from this library. Just that one omission alone would make a fairly good library out of a library that hadn't a book in it."

"To me his (Edgar Allan Poe's) prose is unreadable — like Jane Austin's [sic]. No there is a difference. I could read his prose on salary, but not Jane's. Jane is entirely impossible. It seems a great pity that they allowed her to die a natural death."

"I often want to criticize Jane Austen, but her books madden me so that I can't conceal my frenzy from the reader; and therefore I have to stop every time I begin. Every time I read Pride and Prejudice I want to dig her up and hit her over the skull with her own shin-bone."

"I don't see how anyone could have a greater scope in knowledge of human nature and reveal more of human nature than Jane Austen."

"Miss Austin has the merit (in our judgment most essential) of being evidently a Christian writer: a merit which is much enhanced, both on the score of good taste, and of practical utility, by her religion being not at all obtrusive. She might defy the most fastidious critic to call any of her novels, (as Coelebs was designated, we will not say altogether without reason,) a "dramatic sermon." The subject is rather alluded to, and that incidentally, than studiously brought forward and dwelt upon."

"Most works in realism tell a succession of such abject truths; they are deeply in earnest, every detail is true, and yet the whole finally tumbles to the ground — true but without significance. How did Jane Austen save her novels from that danger? They appear to be compact of abject truth. Their events are excruciatingly unimportant; and yet, with R. Crusoe, they will probably outlast all Fielding, Scott, George Elliot, Thackeray, and Dickens. The art is so consummate that the secret is hidden; peer at them as hard as one may; shake them; take them apart; one cannot see how it is done."

"Whatever 'Bloomsbury' may think of Jane Austen, she is not by any means one of my favourites. I'd give all she ever wrote for half what the Brontës wrote -- if my reason did not compel me to see that she is a magnificent artist. What I shall proceed to find out, from her letters, when I've time, is why she failed to be much better than she was. Something to do with sex, I expect; the letters are full of hints already that she suppressed half of her in her novels."

"Charlotte Brontë, with all her splendid gift for prose, stumbled and fell with that clumsy weapon in her hands. George Eliot committed atrocities with it that beggar description. Jane Austen looked at it and laughed at it and devised a perfectly natural, shapely sentence proper for her own use and never departed from it. Thus, with less genius for writing than Charlotte Brontë, she got infinitely more said."

"Jane Austen is thus a mistress of much deeper emotion than appears upon the surface. She stimulates us to supply what is not there. What she offers is, apparently, a trifle, yet is composed of something that expands in the reader's mind and endows with the most enduring form of life scenes which are outwardly trivial. Always the stress is laid upon character. How, we are made to wonder, will Emma behave when Lord Osborne and Tom Musgrave make their call at five minutes before three, just as Mary is bringing in the tray and the knife-case? It is an extremely awkward situation. The young men are accustomed to much greater refinement. Emma may prove herself ill-bred, vulgar, a nonentity. The turns and twists of the dialogue keep us on the tenterhooks of suspense. Our attention is half upon the present moment, half upon the future. And when, in the end, Emma behaves in such a way as to vindicate our highest hopes of her, we are moved as if we had been made witnesses of a matter of the highest importance. Here, indeed, in this unfinished and in the main inferior story, are all the elements of Jane Austen's greatness. It has the permanent quality of literature. Think away the surface animation, the likeness to life, and there remains, to provide a deeper pleasure, an exquisite discrimination of human values."

"We have too many high sounding words, and too few actions that correspond with them."

"I wish most sincerely there was not a slave in this province. It always appeared a most iniquitous scheme to me — to fight ourselves for what we are daily robbing and plundering from those who have as good a right to freedom as we have."

"How difficult the task to quench the fire and the pride of private ambition, and to sacrifice ourselves and all our hopes and expectations to the public weal! How few have souls capable of so noble an undertaking! How often are the laurels worn by those who have had no share in earning them! But there is a future recompense of reward, to which the upright man looks, and which he will most assuredly obtain, provided he perseveres unto the end."

"I am more and more convinced that man is a dangerous creature; and that power, whether vested in many or a few, is ever grasping, and, like the grave, cries, “Give, give!” The great fish swallow up the small; and he who is most strenuous for the rights of the people, when vested with power, is as eager after the prerogatives of government. You tell me of degrees of perfection to which human nature is capable of arriving, and I believe it, but at the same time lament that our admiration should arise from the scarcity of the instances."

"The reins of government have been so long slackened, that I fear the people will not quietly submit to those restraints which are necessary for the peace and security of the community."

"I feel anxious for the fate of our monarchy, or democracy, or whatever is to take place. I soon get lost in a labyrinth of perplexities; but, whatever occurs, may justice and righteousness be the stability of our times, and order arise out of confusion. Great difficulties may be surmounted by patience and perseverance."

"I long to hear that you have declared an independency. And by the way, in the new Code of Laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make I desire you would Remember the Ladies, and be more generous and favourable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the Husbands. Remember all Men would be tyrants if they could. If particular care and attention is not paid to the Ladies we are determined to foment a Rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any Laws in which we have no voice, or Representation. That your Sex are Naturally Tyrannical is a Truth so thoroughly established as to admit of no dispute, but such of you as wish to be happy willingly give up the harsh title of Master for the more tender and endearing one of Friend. Why, then, not put it out of the power of the vicious and the Lawless to use us with cruelty and indignity with impunity? Men of Sense in all Ages abhor those customs which treat us only as the vassals of your sex; regard us then as Beings placed by Providence under your protection, and in imitation of the Supreme Being make use of that power only for our happiness."

"Shall we be despised by foreign powers for hesitating so long at a word?"

"I can not say that I think you very generous to the Ladies, for Whilst you are proclaiming peace and good will to men, emancipating all nations, you insist upon retaining an absolute power over wives. But you must remember that arbitrary power is like most other things which are very hard, very liable to be broken — and notwithstanding all your wise laws and maxims we have it in our power not only to free ourselves but to subdue our masters, and without violence throw both your natural and legal authority at our feet."

"Deliver me from your cold phlegmatic preachers, politicians, friends, lovers and husbands."

"If you complain of neglect of Education in sons, what shall I say with regard to daughters, who every day experience the want of it? With regard to the Education of my own children, I find myself soon out of my depth, destitute and deficient in every part of Education. I most sincerely wish that some more liberal plan might be laid and executed for the Benefit of the rising Generation, and that our new Constitution may be distinguished for encouraging Learning and Virtue. If we mean to have Heroes, Statesmen and Philosophers, we should have learned women. The world perhaps would laugh at me and accuse me of vanity, But you I know have a mind too enlarged and liberal to disregard the Sentiment. If much depends as is allowed upon the early education of youth and the first principles which are instill'd take the deepest root, great benefit must arise from literary accomplishments in women."

"It is really mortifying, sir, when a woman possessed of a common share of understanding considers the difference of education between the male and female sex, even in those families where education is attended to... Nay why should your sex wish for such a disparity in those whom they one day intend for companions and associates. Pardon me, sir, if I cannot help sometimes suspecting that this neglect arises in some measure from an ungenerous jealousy of rivals near the throne."

"I regret the narrow contracted education of the females of my own country."

"If we do not lay out ourselves in the service of mankind whom should we serve?"

"Luxury, that baneful poison, has unstrung and enfeebled her sons."

"These are times in which a genius would wish to live. It is not in the still calm of life, or in the repose of a pacific station, that great characters are formed. The habits of a vigorous mind are formed in contending with difficulties. Great necessities call out great virtues. When a mind is raised, and animated by the scenes that engage the heart, then those qualities which would otherwise lay dormant, wake into life and form the character of the hero and the statesman."

"A little of what you call frippery is very necessary towards looking like the rest of the world."

"Learning is not attained by chance, it must be sought for with ardor and attended to with diligence."

"Patriotism in the female s*x is the most disinterested of all virtues. Excluded from honors and from offices, we cannot attach ourselves to the State or Government from having held a place of eminence. Even in the freest countries our property is subject to the control and disposal of our partners, to whom the laws have given a sovereign authority. Deprived of a voice in legislation, obliged to submit to those laws which are imposed upon us, is it not sufficient to make us indifferent to the public welfare? Yet all history and every age exhibit instances of patriotic virtue in the female sex; which considering our situation equals the most heroic of yours."

"I begin to think, that a calm is not desirable in any situation in life. Every object is beautiful in motion; a ship under sail, trees gently agitated with the wind, and a fine woman dancing, are three instances in point. Man was made for action and for bustle too, I believe."

"To be good, and to do good, is the whole duty of man comprised in a few words."

"Knowledge is a fine thing, and mother Eve thought so; but she smarted so severly for hers, that most of her daughters have been afraid of it since."

"I acknowledge myself a unitarian — Believing that the Father alone, is the supreme God, and that Jesus Christ derived his Being, and all his powers and honors from the Father. … There is not any reasoning which can convince me, contrary to my senses, that three is one, and one three."

"Do not grieve, my friend, my dearest friend. I am ready to go. And John, it will not be long."

"Men of sense in all ages abhor those customs, which treat us only as the vessels of your sex"

"Do not put such unlimited powers in the hands of the husband, Remember all men would be tyrants if they could."

"Great necessities call forth great leaders."

"In the revolution, Mrs. Adams sad to her husband, “It seems to me that while you are struggling for your own liberty, you are not applying the principle universally” — the women and the slaves had been left out. The principle was not applied then, and has not been applied since."

"I had always resented the pains that militant suffragists took to belittle the work that woman had done in the past in the world, picturing her as a meek and prostrate "doormat." They refused, I felt, to pay proper credit to the fine social and economic work that women had done in the building of America. And in 1909, after we took over the American Magazine, I burst out with a series of studies of leading American women from the Revolution to the Civil War, including such stalwarts as Mercy Warren, Abigail Adams, Esther Reed, Mary Lyon, Catharine Beecher, the fighting antislavery leaders-not omitting two for whom I had warm admiration, if I was not in entire agreement with them, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony."

"He who has lost only those of whose faith and truth he is sure, has not yet reached the depth of human desolation."

"For the first time he looked into his heart and wrote, and thus for the first time he touched the hearts of others; the cold style took fire, and beneath the clumsy periods welled tears."

"It is by character and not by intellect the world is won."

"If to be great means to be good, then Denis Diderot was a little man. But if to be great means to do great things in the teeth of great obstacles, then none can refuse him a place in the temple of the Immortals."

"It is as the father of the Encyclopedia that Denis Diderot merits eternal recognition. Guilty as he was in almost every relation of life towards the individual, for mankind, in the teeth of danger and of infidelity, at the ill-paid sacrifice of the best years of his exuberant life, he produced that book which first levelled a free path to knowledge and enfranchised the soul of his generation."

"A Platonic friendship is perhaps only possible when one or other of the Platonists is in love with a third person."

"There is always more goodness in the world than there appears to be, because goodness is of its very nature modest and retiring."

"'What a fuss about an omelette!' he had exclaimed when he heard of the burning. How abominably unjust to persecute a man for such an airy trifle as that! "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it," was his attitude now."

"All men now allow that if any human power could have stemmed the avalanche of the French Revolution, it would have been the reforms of Turgot."

"Hopeless, filthy, degraded, superstitious with the craven superstition which made them the easy prey of their unscrupulous clergy and left them wholly sensual and stupid; as animals, without the animals' instinctive joy of life and fearlessness of the morrow ; with no ambitions for themselves or the children who turned to curse them for having brought them into such a world; with no time to dream or love, no time for the tenderness which makes life, life indeed — they toiled for a few cruel years because they feared to die, and died because they feared to live. Such were the people Turgot was sent to redeem."

"In his home-life Turgot remained most frugal and laborious, treating his servants with a benevolence then accounted contemptible, and working out his quiet schemes with an infinite patience and thoroughness. When he was offered the richer Intendancy of Lyons, he would not take it. Here, as he said of himself, though he was 'the compulsory instrument of great evil,' he was doing a little good. Only a little, it might be. But if every man did the little he could — what a different world!"

"Immortal Aphrodite of the shimmering throne, daughter of Zeus, weaver of wiles, I pray thee crush not my spirit with anguish and distress, O Queen. But come hither if ever before thou didst hear my voice afar, and hearken, and leaving the golden house of thy father, camest with chariot yoked, and swift birds drew thee, their swift pinions fluttering over the dark earth, from heaven through mid-space. Quickly they arrived; and thou blessed one with immortal countenance smiling didst ask: What now is befallen me and why now I call and what I in my heart’s madness, most desire. What fair one now wouldst thou draw to love thee? Who wrongs thee Sappho? For even if she flies she shall soon follow and if she rejects gifts, shall soon offer them and if she loves not shall soon love, however reluctant. Come I pray thee now and release me from cruel cares, and let my heart accomplish all that it desires, and be thou my ally."

"Come hither from Crete to this holy temple, where is your graceful grove of apple-trees, and altars smoking with frankincense. In it cool water sounds through apple-boughs; all the place is shadowed with roses, and from the quivering leaves sleep comes down. In it a meadow blossoms with spring flowers, where horses pasture, and there the breezes breathe sweetly....There, Cyprian, take chaplets and pour softly in gold cups nectar mingled with our feasting."

"Some say cavalry and others claim infantry or a fleet of long oars is the supreme sight on the black earth. I say it isthe one you love. And easily proved. Didn't Helen, who far surpassed all mortals in beauty, desert the best of men, her king,and sail off to Troy and forget her daughter and her dear parents? Merely Aphrodite's gaze made her readily bend and led her farfrom her path. These tales remind me now of Anaktoria who isn't here, yet I for onewould rather see her warm supple step and the sparkle in her face than watch all the chariots in Lydia and foot soldiers armored in glittering bronze."

"Look at him, just like a god, that man sitting across from you, whoever he is, listening to your close, sweet voice, your irresistible laughter And O yes, it sets my heart racing— one glance at you and I can't get any words out, my voice cracks, a thin flame runs under my skin, my eyes go blind, my ears ring, a cold sweat pours down my body, I tremble all over, turn paler than grass."

"The stars hide away their shining form around the lovely moon when in all her fullness she shines (over all) the earth."

"Eros has shaken my mind, wind sweeping down the mountain on oaks."

"I loved you, Atthis, once, long, long ago... You seemed to me a small, ungainly child."

"A handsome man guards his image a while; a good man will one day take on beauty."

"But thou shalt ever lie dead, nor shall there be any remembrance of thee then or thereafter, for thou hast not of the roses of Pieria; but thou shalt wander obscure even in the house of Hades, flitting among the shadowy dead."

"Of course I am downcast and tremble with pity for my state when old age and wrinkles cover me,when Eros flies about and I pursue the glorious young. Pick up your lyreand sing to us of her who wears violets on her breasts. Sing especially of her who is wandering."

"O dream on your black wings you come when I am sleeping.Sweet is the god but still I am in agony and far from my strength.for I had hope (none now) to share something of the blessed gods,nor was I so foolish as to scorn pleasant toys.Now may I have all these things."

"Do thou, O Dica, set garlands upon thy lovely hair, weaving sprigs of dill with thy delicate hands; for those who wear fair blossoms may surely stand first, even in the presence of Goddesses who look without favour upon those who come ungarlanded."

"Truly, I wish I were dead. She was weeping when she left me, and said many things to me, and said this: "How much we have suffered, Sappho. Truly, I don't want to leave you.""

"Sweet mother, I truly cannot weave my web; for I am o’erwhelmed through Aphrodite with love of a slender youth."

"Like the sweet apple reddening on the topmost branch, the topmost apple on the tip of the branch, and the pickers forgot it, well, no, they didn't forget, they just couldn't reach it."

"As the hyacinth which the shepherd tramples on the hill Lies upon the ground and lying bloometh purple still."

"Virginity, virginity, when you leave me, where do you go? I am gone and never come back to you. I never return."

"Now Love masters my limbs and shakes me, fatal creature, bitter-sweet."

"I have a fair daughter with a form like a golden flower, Cleïs the belovedest, above whom I [prize] nor all Lydia nor lovely [Lesbos]."

"The lovely-voiced harbinger of Spring, the nightingale."

"If you are my friend, stand up before me and scatter the grace that's in your eyes."

"Evening, thou that bringest all that bright morning scattered; thou bringest the sheep, the goat, the child back to her mother."

"Neither honey nor bee for me."

"When wrath runs rampage in your heart you must hold still that rambunctious tongue!"

"The moon has set, And the Pleiades. Midnight. The hour has gone by. I sleep alone."

"To have beauty is to have only that, but to have goodness is to be beautiful too."

"Among the mutilated poets of antiquity, there is none whose fragments are so beautiful as those of Sappho. They give us a taste of her way of writing, which is perfectly conformable with that extraordinary character we find of her in the remarks of those great critics who were conversant with her works when they were entire. One may see, by what is left of them, that she followed nature in all her thoughts, without descending to those little points, conceits, and turns of wit, with which many of our modem lyrics are so miserably infected. Her soul seems to have been made up of love and poetry: she felt the passion in all its warmth, and described it in all its symptoms. She is called by ancient authors the tenth muse; and by Plutarch is compared to Cacus, the son of Vulcan, who breathed out nothing but flame. I do not know, by the character that is given of her works, whether it is not for the benefit of mankind that they are lost. They were filled with such bewitching tenderness and rapture, that it might have been dangerous to have given them a reading."

"Sappho thou coverest, Æolian land! The Muse who died, Who with the deathless Muses, hand in hand, Sang, side by side! Sappho, at once of Cypris and of Love The child and care; Sappho, that those immortal garlands wove For the Muses’ hair! Sappho, the joy of Hellas, and thy crown,— Ye Sisters dread, Who spin for mortals from the distaff down The threefold thread, Why span ye not for her unending days, Unsetting sun, For her who wrought the imperishable lays Of Helicon?"

"When everybody says "lesbian," a word connected with Sappho and the island of Lesbos, that automatically means that your forefathers and foremothers are European, that George Washington is the father of our country and Columbus discovered America-all false assumptions."

"When Judy Grahn wrote of the Greek poet Sappho she suggested that she was not the first woman poet in Western civilization, not a solitary female voice rising out of an otherwise barren plain. On the contrary, Grahn said, hers was the surviving voice, the last voice in a long line of women poets and artists-Sappho's works so badly fragmented because they were systematically destroyed. Grahn wrote: “And what was the nature of Sappho's wealth? She praised it often enough: love, beauty, grace, flowers, appropriate behavior to the gods, lovely clothing, intelligence, tenderness. Her poems are filled with the color purple, the color gold, the sun, flowers, especially the violet and the rose, and altars, deer, groves of trees, and the stories of the gods. Love, she said, is a tale-weaver. Wealthy? We own no kind of money that would buy us Sappho's wealth. In her world, women were central to themselves; they had to have been to write as she did. She lived on an island of women, in a company of women, from which she addressed all creation. And oh, how they listened.”"

"I wanted to hear Sappho’s laughter and the speech of her stringed shell.What I heard was whiskered mumble- ment of grammarians:Greek pterodactyls and Victorian dodos."

"One of the earliest -- and perhaps the first -- rivals of the hymnology of war, hatred, and revenge made immortal by Homer was the poetry of an Aeolian woman called Sappha by her people but uniformly known to later times as Sappho...Much of Sappho's poetry was of a plaintive tenderness but she had a fervid feeling for love as a saving grace. Several of her feminine disciples also sang of the beauty and healing force of love. Solon the law-giver and Plato the philosopher were deeply affected by her hymns to the great idea of a social power unrecognized by "the Bible of the Greeks": Homer. Though Attic poets and playwrights tried to destroy her by attacking her as a courtesan or "Lesbian" pervert, the German classical scholar, Welcker, in his Kleine Schriften, declares that such attacks were sheer calumny. Nor did they succeed in their aim. More than twenty centuries have honored the "sweet singer" of Aeolia."

"(What author living or dead would you most like to meet, and what would you like to know?) Sappho, what else did you write?"

"We knew...that Sappho had written love poems to women in 600 B.C."

"Mascula Sappho."

"Ἐπιδειξαμένου γὰρ αὐτῷ τοῦ Μυρρινουσίου Φαίδρου λόγον ὑπὸ Λυσίου τοῦ Κεφάλου συγγεγραμμένον ἐρωτικόν, οὐκ ἔφη θαυμάζειν, πλῆρες τὸ στῆθος ἔχων ὥσπερ ἀγγεῖον ἀλλοτρίων ναμάτων, ἤ που Σαπφοῦς τῆς καλῆς (οὕτω γὰρ αὐτὴν ὀνομάζων χαίρει διὰ τὴν ὥραν τῶν μελῶν, καίτοι μικρὰν οὖσαν καὶ μέλαιναν), ἢ Ἀνακρέοντος, φησίν, τοῦ σοφοῦ."

"And of the flowers of Sappho few, but roses."

"Of Sappho few flowers, but they are roses."

"Non veniunt in idem pudor atque amor."

"Sappho is a great poet because she is a lesbian, which gives her erotic access to the Muse. Sappho and the homosexual-tending Emily Dickinson stand alone above women poets, because poetry's mystical energies are ruled by a hierach requiring the sexual subordination of her petitioners. Women have achieved more as novelists than as poets because the social novel operates outside the ancient marriage of myth and eroticism."

"Poetry changes with every generation, but it does not improve or progress. It just changes its styles, trappings and some of its obsessions, but we can still enjoy Sappho and Homer; they are today's news as much as when they were written or recited."

"Sappho speaks words mingled truly with fire; through her song she communicates the heat of her heart."

"Living unloved, to die unknown, Unwept, untended and alone."

"The small dark body's Lesbian loveliness That held the fire eternal."

"Philip Sidney, printed with The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia (F1, 1593)"

"Ben Jonson, The Sad Shepherd: or, A Tale of Robin Hood (1641) act 2, sc. 5"

"William Bowles, in Poems by Several Hands, and on Several Occasions, collected by N. Tate (London: J. Hindmarsh, 1685) p. 85"

"John Addison, The Works of Anacreon, [with] the Odes, Fragments and Epigrams of Sappho (London: J. Watts, 1735)"

"Ambrose Philips, Pastorals, Epistles, Odes, &c. with Translations from Pindar, Anacreon, and Sappho (1748)"

"Thomas Moore, Evenings in Greece (1826) p. 18"

"Edwin Arnold, The Poets of Greece (London: Cassell, Fetter, and Galpin, 1869)"

"D. G. Rossetti, Poems (1870; 2nd ed., 1881)"

"J. A. Symonds, Studies of the Greek Poets (1st series, 1873; 2nd series, 1876; revised 1883)"

"H. T. Wharton, Sappho: Memoir, Text, Selected Renderings and a Literal Translation, 2nd ed. (London: David Stott, 1887)"

"Frederick Tennyson, The Isles of Greece: Sappho and Alcaeus (1890) p. 91"

"Thomas Hardy, Poems of the Past and the Present (1901)"

"W. G. Headlam, A Book of Greek Verse (Cambridge UP, 1907) pp. 4–17"

"Rennell Rodd, Love, Worship and Death: Some Renderings from the Greek Anthology (London: Edward Arnold, 1919)"

"A. S. Way, Sappho, and the Vigil of Venus (London: Macmillan and Co, 1920)"

"A. E. Housman, Last Poems (1922) no. 24 · More Poems (1936) nos. 10 and 11"

"J. M. Edmonds, Lyra Graeca, vol. 1 (1922)"

"E. M. Cox, The Poems of Sappho (London: Williams and Norgate, 1924)"

"T. F. Higham, C. M. Bowra and W. S. Marris, The Oxford Book of Greek Verse in Translation (1938) nos. 140–157"

"Douglas Young, A Braird o Thristles (1947) — into Scots"

"Richmond Lattimore, Greek Lyrics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1949; revised 1960)"

"C. M. Bowra, Greek Lyric Poetry: From Alcman to Simonides (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1961) p. 197"

"Mary Barnard, Sappho: A New Translation (University of California Press, 1958)"

"Willis Barnstone, Sappho: Lyrics in the Original Greek with Translations (New York: Anchor, 1965; 2nd ed., New York UP)"

"Suzy Q. Groden, The Poems of Sappho (Bobbs-Merrill Co, 1966)"

"David A. Campbell, Greek Lyric, vol. 1: Sappho and Alcaeus, LCL 142 (1982)"

"Anne Carson, If Not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2002)"

"Stanley Lombardo, Sappho: Poems and Fragments (Hackett Publishing, 2002)"

"I like to praise and reward loudly, to blame quietly."

"I will live to make myself not feared."

"The Governing Senate. . . has deemed it necessary to make known... that the landlords' serfs and peasants . . . owe their landlords proper submission and absolute obedience in all matters, according to the laws that have been enacted from time immemorial by the autocratic forefathers of Her Imperial Majesty and which have not been repealed, and which provide that all persons who dare to incite serfs and peasants to disobey their landlords shall be arrested and taken to the nearest government office, there to be punished forthwith as disturbers of the public tranquillity, according to the laws and without leniency. And should it so happen that even after the publication of the present decree of Her Imperial Majesty any serfs and peasants should cease to give the proper obedience to their landlords . . . and should make bold to submit unlawful petitions complaining of their landlords, and especially to petition Her Imperial Majesty personally, then both those who make the complaints and those who write up the petitions shall be punished by the knout and forthwith deported to Nerchinsk to penal servitude for life and shall be counted as part of the quota of recruits which their landlords must furnish to the army. And in order that people everywhere may know of the present decree, it shall be read in all the churches on Sundays and holy days for one month after it is received and therafter once every year during the great church festivals, lest anyone pretend ignorance."

"Assuredly men of merit are never lacking at any time, for those are the men who manage affairs, and it is affairs that produce the men. I have never searched, and I have always found under my hand the men who have served me, and for the most part I have been well served."

"Your wit makes others witty."

"A great wind is blowing, and that gives you either imagination or a headache."

"Power without a nation's confidence is nothing."

"You philosophers are lucky men. You write on paper and paper is patient. Unfortunate Empress that I am, I write on the susceptible skins of living beings."

"The Sovereign is absolute; for there is no other Authority but that which centers in his single Person, that can act with a Vigour proportionate to the Extent of such a vast Dominion. The Extent of the Dominion requires an absolute Power to be vested in that Person who rules over it. It is expedient so to be, that the quick Dispatch of Affairs, sent from distant Parts, might make ample Amends for the Delay occasioned by the great Distance of the Places. Every other Form of Government whatsoever would not only have been prejudicial to Russia, but would even have proved its entire Ruin."

"It is better to be subject to the Laws under one Master, than to be subservient to many."

"What is the true End of Monarchy? Not to deprive People of their natural Liberty; but to correct their Actions, in order to attain the supreme Good. The Form of Government, therefore, which best attains this End, and at the same Time sets less Bounds than others to natural Liberty, is that which coincides with the Views and Purposes of rational Creatures, and answers the End, upon which we ought to fix a steadfast Eye in the Regulations of civil Polity."

"The Intention and the End of Monarchy, is the Glory of the Citizens, of the State, and of the Sovereign. But, from this Glory, a Sense of Liberty arises in a People governed by a Monarch; which may produce in these States as much Energy in transacting the most important Affairs, and may contribute as much to the Happiness of the Subjects, as even Liberty itself...."

"The Laws ought to be so framed, as to secure the Safety of every Citizen as much as possible."

"The Equality of the Citizens consists in this; that they should all be subject to the same Laws. This Equality requires Institutions so well adapted, as to prevent the Rich from oppressing those who are not so wealthy as themselves, and converting all the Charges and Employments intrusted to them as Magistrates only, to their own private Emolument...."

"In a State or Assemblage of People that live together in a Community, where there are Laws, Liberty can only consist in doing that which every One ought to do, and not to be constrained to do that which One ought not to do."

"A Man ought to form in his own Mind an exact and clear Idea of what Liberty is. Liberty is the Right of doing whatsoever the Laws allow: And if any one Citizen could do what the Laws forbid, there would be no more Liberty; because others would have an equal Power of doing the same."

"The political Liberty of a Citizen is the Peace of Mind arising from the Consciousness, that every Individual enjoys his peculiar Safety; and in order that the People might attain this Liberty, the Laws ought to be so framed, that no one Citizen should stand in Fear of another; but that all of them should stand in Fear of the same Laws...."

"The Usage of Torture is contrary to all the Dictates of Nature and Reason; even Mankind itself cries out against it, and demands loudly the total Abolition of it."

"That Law, therefore, is highly beneficial to the Community where it is established, which ordains that every Man shall be judged by his Peers and Equals. For when the Fate of a Citizen is in Question, all Prejudices arising from the Difference of Rank or Fortune should be stifled; because they ought to have no Influence between the Judges and the Parties accused."

"No Man ought to be looked upon as guilty, before he has received his judicial Sentence; nor can the Laws deprive him of their Protection, before it is proved that he has forfeited all Right to it. What Right therefore can Power give to any to inflict Punishment upon a Citizen at a Time, when it is yet dubious, whether he is Innocent or guilty?"

"A Society of Citizens, as well as every Thing else, requires a certain fixed Order: There ought to be some to govern, and others to obey. And this is the Origin of every Kind of Subjection; which feels itself more or less alleviated, in Proportion to the Situation of the Subjects.And, consequently, as the Law of Nature commands Us to take as much Care, as lies in Our Power, of the Prosperity of all the People; we are obliged to alleviate the Situation of the Subjects, as much as sound Reason will permit. And therefore, to shun all Occasions of reducing People to a State of Slavery, except the utmost Necessity should inevitably oblige us to do it; in that Case, it ought not to be done for our own Benefit; but for the Interest of the State: Yet even that Case is extremely uncommon. Of whatever Kind Subjection may be, the civil Laws ought to guard, on the one Hand, against the Abuse of Slavery, and, on the other, against the Dangers which may arise from it."

"It seems too, that the Method of exacting their Revenues, newly invented by the Lords, diminishes both the Inhabitants, and the Spirit of Agriculture in Russia. Almost all the Villages are heavily taxed. The Lords, who seldom or never reside in their Villages, lay an Impost on every Head of one, two, and even five Rubles, without the least Regard to the Means by which their Peasants may be able to raise this Money. It is highly necessary that the Law should prescribe a Rule to the Lords, for a more judicious Method of raising their Revenues; and oblige them to levy such a Tax, as tends least to separate the Peasant from his House and Family; this would be the Means by which Agriculture would become more extensive, and Population be more increased in the Empire."

"They raised the Prince for the throne of Sweden in a court that was too large for the country in which it was located and that was divided into several factions, which hated each other and vied to control the Prince’s mind, which each faction wanted to shape. As a result, these factions inspired in him the reciprocal hatred they felt against the individuals they opposed."

"From the age of ten, Peter III was partial to drink."

"The education of Peter III was undermined by a clash of unfortunate circumstances. I will relate what I have seen and heard, and that in itself will clarify many things. I saw Peter III for the first time when he was eleven years old, in Eutin at the home of his guardian, the Prince Bishop of Lübeck. Some months after the death of Duke Karl Friedrich, Peter III’s father, the Prince Bishop had in 1739 assembled all of his family at his home in Eutin to have his ward brought there. My grandmother, mother of the Prince Bishop, and my mother, sister of this same Prince, had come there from Hamburg with me. I was ten years old at the time.... It was then that I heard it said among this assembled family that the young duke was inclined to drink, that his attendants found it difficult to prevent him from getting drunk at meals, that he was restive and hotheaded, did not like his attendants and especially Brümmer, and that otherwise he showed vivacity, but had a delicate and sickly appearance. In truth, his face was pale in color and he seemed to be thin and of a delicate constitution. His attendants wanted to give this child the appearance of a mature man, and to this end they hampered and restrained him, which could only inculcate falseness in his conduct as well as his character."

"The Grand Duke appeared to rejoice at the arrival of my mother and myself. I was in my fifteenth year. During the first ten days he paid me much attention. Even then and in that short time, I saw and understood that he did not care much for the nation that he was destined to rule, and that he clung to Lutheranism, did not like his entourage, and was very childish. I remained silent and listened, and this gained me his trust. I remember him telling me that among other things, what pleased him most about me was that I was his second cousin, and that because I was related to him, he could speak to me with an open heart. Then he told me that he was in love with one of the Empress’s maids of honor, who had been dismissed from court because of the misfortune of her mother, one Madame Lopukhina, who had been exiled to Siberia, that he would have liked to marry her, but that he was resigned to marry me because his aunt desired it. I listened with a blush to these family confidences, thanking him for his ready trust, but deep in my heart I was astonished by his imprudence and lack of judgment in many matters."

"To tempt, and to be tempted, are things very nearly allied, and, in spite of the finest maxims of morality impressed upon the mind, whenever feeling has anything to do in the matter, no sooner is it excited than we have already gone vastly farther than we are aware of, and I have yet to learn how it is possible to prevent its being excited. Flight alone is, perhaps, the only remedy; but there are cases and circumstances in which flight becomes impossible, for how is it possible to fly, shun, or turn one's back in the midst of a court? The very attempt would give rise to remarks. Now, if you do not fly, there is nothing, it seems to me, so difficult as to escape from that which is essentially agreeable. All that can be said in opposition to it will appear but a prudery quite out of harmony with the natural instincts of the human heart; besides, no one holds his heart in his hand, tightening or relaxing his grasp of it at pleasure."

"The more a man knows, the more he forgives."

"This princess seems to combine every kind of ambition in her person. Everything that may add luster to her reign will have some attraction for her. Science and the arts will be encouraged to flourish in the empire, projects useful for the domestic economy will be undertaken. She will endeavor to reform the administration of justice and to invigorate the laws; but her policies will be based on Machiavellianism; and I should not be surprised if in this field she rivals the king of Prussia. She will adopt the prejudices of her entourage regarding the superiority of her power and will endeavor to win respect not by the sincerity and probity of her actions but also by an ostentatious display of her strength. Haughty as she is, she will stubbornly pursue her undertakings and will rarely retrace a false step. Cunning and falsity appear to be vices in her character; woe to him who puts too much trust in her. Love affairs may become a stumbling block to her ambition and prove fatal for her peace of mind. This passionate princess, still held in check by the fear and consciousness of internal troubles, will know no restraint once she believes herself firmly established."

"Powerful women are either sexually voracious rulers like Catherine the Great or Elizabeth I, or treacherous bitches like Cleopatra or Helen of Troy."

"As a ruler, Catherine professed a great contempt for system, which she said she had been taught to despise by her master Voltaire. She declared that in politics a capable ruler must be guided by "circumstances, conjectures and conjunctions.""

"History can be helpful in making sense of the world we live in. It can also be fascinating, even fun. How can even the best novelist or playwright invent someone like Augustus Caesar or Catherine the Great, Galileo or Florence Nightingale? How can screenwriters create better action stories or human dramas than exist, thousand upon thousand, throughout the many centuries of recorded history? There is a thirst out there both for knowledge and to be entertained, and the market has responded with enthusiasm."

"In Beauty's dwelling all things fair, And rich, to win her sweet smiles strove; But still young Beauty's only care Was, to watch o'er the lamp of Love."

"But tir'd at length poor Beauty slept, And while she rested, wearied quite, Indifference to the dear lamp crept, And quench'd its warm, and splendid light."

"To win, beloved Caroline from thee, One thought, in years when we shall sever'd be-- --Sever'd, perchance, by those deep waves, which pour Their billowy murmurs round our native shore,-- For this, I wander'd round the Bow'rs of Song, A weary, and rejected suppliant long, And of the Muses crav'd in humblest tone From their rich wreaths, one simple bud alone: They did but fling their wildest weeds at me, And thus I twin'd them into verse for thee!"

"The great mistake of the reformers is to believe that life begins and ends with health, and that happiness begins and ends with a full stomach and the power to enjoy physical pleasures, even of the finer kind."

"The aristocracy most widely developed in America is that of wealth."

"I nearly always find, when I ask a vegetarian if he is a socialist, or a socialist if he is a vegetarian, that the answer is in the affirmative."

"Individual freedom and individual equality cannot co-exist. I dare say no one since Thomas Jefferson has really believed it."

"Many of us do not believe in capital punishment, because thus society takes from a man what society cannot give."

"Fate sits on these dark battlements and frowns, And as the portal opens to receive me, A voice in hollow murmurs through the courts Tells of a nameless deed."

"But hark! what shriek of death comes in the gale, And in the distant ray what glimmering sail Bends to the storm?—Now sinks the note of fear! Ah? wretched mariners!—no more shall day Unclose his cheering eye to light ye on your way!"

"One thing that happens with gothic novels is the idea of the evil Other. That’s quite clear if you read Walpole or Radcliffe. It’s often an evil Italian or an evil Spaniard. Catholicism is mixed with that. It’s like these exotic evil Catholic people that are coming to pervert us."

"My mother, who disliked me from the bottom of her heart, deliberately did everything, it seemed, that would strengthen and intensify my unbounded passion for freedom and a military life. She wouldn't let me walk in the garden. She wouldn't let me be away from her for even half an hour: I had to sit in her bedroom and make lace. She herself taught me to sew, to knit, and seeing that I had neither the desire nor the ability for this sort of work, that in my hands everything tore or broke, she became angry, lost control of herself, and beat me very painfully on the hands."

"O Liberté, que de crimes on commet en ton nom!"

"I have been reading Madame Roland's memoirs and have come to the conclusion that she was a very over-rated woman; snobbish, vain, sentimental, envious — rather a German type. Her last days before her execution were spent in chronicling petty social snubs or triumphs of many years back. She was a democrat chiefly from envy of the noblesse."

"I would like the angels of Heaven to be among us. I would like an abundance of peace. I would like full vessels of charity. I would like rich treasures of mercy. I would like cheerfulness to preside over all. I would like Jesus to be present. I would like the three Marys of illustrious renown to be with us. I would like the friends of Heaven to be gathered around us from all parts. I would like myself to be a rent payer to the Lord; that I should suffer distress, that he would bestow a good blessing upon me. I would like a great lake of beer for the King of Kings. I would like to be watching Heaven's family drinking it through all eternity."

"Xanthippe.—Socrates found the sort of wife that he needed — but even he would not have sought her had he known her well enough: the heroism of even this free spirit would not have gone that far. Xanthippe actually drove him more and more into his characteristic profession by making his house and home inhospitable and unhomely for him: she taught him to live in the streets and everywhere that one could chat and be idle and thus shaped him into the greatest Athenian street dia­lectician : who finally had to compare himself to an obtrusive gadfly that some god had placed upon the neck of that beautiful horse, Athens, in order to keep it from finding any peace."

"It is the example of the rider who wishes to become an expert horseman: "None of your soft-mouthed, docile animals for me," he says; "the horse for me to own must show some spirit" in the belief, no doubt, if he can manage such an animal, it will be easy enough to deal with every other horse besides. And that is just my case. I wish to deal with human beings, to associate with man in general; hence my choice of wife. I know full well, if I can tolerate her spirit, I can with ease attach myself to every human being else."

"I have heard much of these languishing lovers, but I never yet saw one of them die for love."

"To me it seems much better to love a woman as a woman, than to make her one's idol, as many do. For my part, I am convinced that it is better to use than to abuse."

"No one ever perfectly loved God who did not perfectly love some of his creatures in this world."

"Un malheureux cherche l'autre."

"He who knows his own incapacity, knows something, after all."

"Man is wise ... when he recognises no greater enemy than himself."

"God always helps madmen, lovers, and drunkards."

"Mariage est un état de si longue durée, qu'il ne doit être commencé légèrement, ne sans l'opinion de nos meilleurs amis et parents."

"When one has one good day in the year, one is not wholly unfortunate."

"Blessed, unquestionably, is he who has it in his power to do evil, yet does it not."

"Though jealousy be produced by love as ashes are by fire, yet jealousy extinguishes love, as ashes smother the flame."

"I never knew a mocker who was not mocked, ... a deceiver who was not deceived, or a proud man who was not humbled."

"Ilz font semblant de n'aymer poinct les raisins quand ilz sont si haults, qu'ilz ne les peuvent cueillir."

"Some there are who are much more ashamed of confessing a sin than of committing it."

"The less one sees and knows men, the higher one esteems them; for experience teaches their real value."

"There are few husbands whom the wife can not win in the long run by patience and love, unless they are harder than the rocks which the soft water penetrates in time."

"The more hidden the venom, the more dangerous it is."

"We are always more disposed to laugh at nonsense than at genuine wit; because the nonsense is more agreeable to us, being more comformable to our own natures: fools love folly, and wise men wisdom."

"There is no greater fool than he who thinks himself wise; no one wiser than he who suspects he is a fool."

"There is in us more of the appearance of sense and of virtue than of the reality."

"The virtuous action, done for virtue's sake alone, is truly laudable."

"Men are so accustomed to lie, that one can not take too many precautions before trusting them — if they are to be trusted at all."

"Love works miracles every day: such as weakening the strong, and strengthening the weak; making fools of the wise, and wise men of fools; favoring the passions, destroying reason, and, in a word, turning everything topsy-turvy."

"He who knows his incapacity, knows something."

"The woman who does not choose to love should cut the matter short at once, by holding out no hopes to her suitor."

"Extreme concupiscence may be found under an extreme austerity."

"Hypocrites are wicked: they hide their defects with so much care, that their hearts are poisoned by them."

"We shall all be perfectly virtuous when there is no longer any flesh on our bones."

"I confess I should be glad if my pleasures were as pleasing to God as they are to me: in that case, I should often find matter for rejoicing."

"It is difficult to repent of what gives us pleasure."

"No one perfectly loves God who does not perfectly love some of his creatures."

"In love, as in war, a fortress that parleys is half taken."

"Pleasures are sins: we regret to offend God; but, then, pleasures please us."

"The true and the false speak the same language."

"A woman of honor should never suspect another of things she would not do herself."

"Since love teaches how to trick the tricksters, how much reason have we to fear it — we who are poor simple creatures!"

"Many weep for the sin, while they laugh over the pleasure."

"There are women so hard to please that it seems as if nothing less than an angel will suit them: hence it comes that they often meet with devils."

"God has put into the heart of man love and the boldness to sue, and into the heart of woman fear and the courage to refuse."

"Love is a disease that kills nobody, but one whose time has come."

"The principal themes of the [Heptaméron] are rape, seductions bordering on rape, incest and numerous infringements of the sex and marriage codes of aristocratic Europe."

"The first modern woman."

"Any time while I was a slave, if one minute's freedom had been offered to me, and I had been told that I must die at the end of that minute, I would have taken it—just to stand one minute on God's earth a free woman—I would."

"On this night, Mrs. Poe, lingering on the bed of disease, and surrounded by her children, asks your assistance and asks it perhaps for the last time."

"Ἡνία δή τοι παῖδες ἐνί, τράγε, φοινικόενταθέντες καὶ λασίῳ φιμὰ περὶ στόματι,ἵππια παιδεύουσι θεοῦ περὶ ναὸν ἄεθλα,ὄφρ᾽ αὐτοὺς ἐφορῇ νήπια τερπομένους."

"Οὐκέτι δὴ πλωτοῖσιν ἀγαλλόμενος πελάγεσσιναὐχέν᾽ ἀναρρίψω βυσσόθεν ὀρνύμενος,οὐδὲ περὶ σκαλάμοισι νεὼς περικαλλέα χείληποιφύσσω, τἀμᾷ τερπόμενος προτομᾷ:ἀλλά με πορφυρέα πόντου νοτὶς ὦς᾽ ἐπὶ χέρσον,κεῖμαι δὲ ῥαδινὰν τάνδε παρ᾽ ἠιόνα."

"ἵζευ ἅπας ὑπὸ καλὰ δάφνας εὐθαλέα φύλλα, ὡραίου τ᾽ ἄρυσαι νάματος ἁδὺ πόμα, ὄφρα τοι ἀσθμαίνοντα πόνοις θέρεος φίλα γυῖα ἀμπαύσῃς, πνοιῇ τυπτόμενα Ζεφύρου."

"Ἑρμᾶς τᾶιδ᾽ ἕστακα παρ᾽ ὄρχατον ἠνεμόεντα ἐν τριόδοις πολιᾶς ἐγγύθεν ἀιόνος,ἀνράσι κεκμηῶσιν ἔχων ἄμπαυσιν ὁδοῖο· ψυχρὸν δ᾽ ἀχραὲς κράνα ὑποπροχέει."

"Θάεο τὸν Βρομίου κεραὸν τράγον, ὡς ἀγερώχως ὄμμα κατὰ λασιᾶν γαῦρον ἔχει γενύων,κυδιόων ὅτι οἱ θάμ᾽ ἐν οὔρεσιν ἀμφὶ παρῇδα βόστρυχον εἰς ῥοδέαν Ναῒς ἔδεκτο χέρα."

"Why child, I haven't had time for marriage. Men are a nuisance anyhow, now aren't they? They're just boys grown up."

"Looking for nuggets is like hunting for a whisper in a big wind. You have to have an occupation to fall back on while you’re searching for a strike."

"Every man I met up north was my protector, and any man I ever met, if he needed my help, got it, whether it was a hot meal, nursing, mothering or whatever else he needed. After all, we pass this way only once, and it's up to us to help our fellows when they need our help."

"When I saw something that needed doing, I did it."

"Soft speech Provençal under the olives! Like a queen’s raiment from days long perish’d, Breathing aromas of old unremember’d Perfumes and shining in dust-cover’d places With sudden hints of forgotten splendour— So on the lips of the peasant his language, His only now, the tongue of the peasant."

"Στᾶλαι, καὶ Σειρῆνες ἐμαί, καὶ πένθιμε κρωσσέ, ὅστις ἔχεις Ἀΐδα τὰν ὀλίγαν σποδιάν, τοῖς ἐμὸν ἐρχομένοισι παρ᾿ ἠρίον εἴπατε χαίρειν, αἴτ᾿ ἀστοὶ τελέθωντ᾿, αἴθ᾿ ἑτέρας πόλιος· χὤτι με νύμφαν εὖσαν ἔχει τάφος, εἴπατε καὶ τό· χὤτι πατήρ μ᾿ ἐκάλει Βαυκίδα, χὤτι γένος Τηνία, ὡς εἰδῶντι· καὶ ὅττι μοι ἁ συνεταιρὶς Ἤρινν᾿ ἐν τύμβῳ γράμμ᾿ ἐχάραξε τόδε."

"[Greek text]"

"Παυροεπὴς Ἤριννα, καὶ οὐ πολύμυθος ἀοιδαῖς: ἀλλ᾽ ἔλαχεν Μούσας τοῦτο τὸ βαιὸν ἔπος. τοιγάρτοι μνήμης οὐκ ἤμβροτεν, οὐδὲ μελαίνης νυκτὸς ὑπὸ σκιερῇ κωλύεται πτέρυγι: αἱ δ᾽ ἀναρίθμητοι νεαρῶν σωρηδὸν ἀοιδῶν μυριάδες λήθῃ, ξεῖνε, μαραινόμεθα. λωίτερος κύκνου μικρὸς θρόος ἠὲ κολοιῶν κρωγμὸς ἐν εἰαριναῖς κιδνάμενος νεφέλαις."

"This to the crown and blessing of my life, The much lov’d husband of a happy wife; To him whose constant passion found the art To win a stubborn and ungratefull heart, And to the world by tend’rest proof discovers, They err, who say that husbands can’t be lovers."

"Judge not my passion by my want of skill: Many love well, though they express it ill; And I your censure cou’d with pleasure bear, Wou’d you but soon returne, and speake it here."

"Did I my lines intend for publick view, How many censures wou’d their faults persue; ... True judges might condemn their want of witt, And all might say, they’re by a Woman writt."

"Alas! a woman that attempts the pen, Such an intruder on the rights of men, Such a presumptuous Creature, is esteem’d, The fault, can by no vertue be redeem’d."

"They tell us we mistake our sex and way; Good breeding, fassion, dancing, dressing, play Are the accomplishments we shou’d desire; To write, or read, or think, or to enquire Wou’d cloud our beauty and exaust our time, And interrupt the Conquests of our prime; Whilst the dull mannage of a servile house Is held by some our outmost art and use."

"How are we fal’n, fal’n by mistaken rules, And Education’s more than Nature’s fools."

"The King, the Priest, the Prophet, all are Thine, Nor wou’d ev’n God (in Flesh) thy Stroke decline."

"Cou’d our First Father, at his toilsome Plough, Thorns in his Path, and Labour on his Brow, Cloath’d only in a rude, unpolish’d Skin, Cou’d he a vain Fantastick Nymph have seen, In all her Airs, in all her antick Graces, Her various Fashions, and more various Faces; How had it pos’d that Skill, which late assign’d Just Appellations to Each several Kind! A right idea of the Sight to frame; T’have guest from what New Element she came; T’have hit the wav’ring Form, and giv’n this Thing a Name."

"Love, thou art best of Human Joys, Our chiefest Happiness below; All other Pleasures are but Toys, Musick without Thee is but Noise, And Beauty but an empty show.Heav’n, who knew best what Man wou’d move, And raise his Thoughts above the Brute; Said, Let him Be, and Let him Love; That must alone his Soul improve, Howe’er Philosophers dispute."

"Free as Nature’s first intention Was to make us, I’ll be found, Nor by subtle Man’s invention Yeild to be in Fetters bound By one that walks a freer round.Mariage does but slightly tye Men Whil’st close Pris’ners we remain, They the larger Slaves of Hymen Still are begging Love again At the full length of all their chain."

"Rien ne m'est plus, plus ne m'est rien."

"Harmony, with ev'ry grace, Plays in the fair proportions of her face."

"No more to fabled names confined, To thee, supreme, all-perfect mind, My thoughts direct their flight: Wisdom's thy gift, and all her force From thee derived, unchanging source Of intellectual light! O send her sure, her steady ray To regulate my doubtful way Through life's perplexing road, The mists of error to control, And through its gloom direct my soul To happiness and good!"

"My mother bids me bind my hair With bands of rosy hue, Tie up my sleeves with ribbons rare, And lace my bodice blue."

"Men should not have everything. They certainly do not accomplish everything."

"It is surprising to know the large number of women who absolutely refuse to go to the polls. Not satisfied with remaining at home, they seem to take pleasure in talking disparagingly about the women who are interested."

"She was magnificent in her womanhood—a dark Brunhilda, handsome, large, and free; full of joy and laughter, frank and fearless, never biting her tongue; and yet one who was never still, never dull, always going and doing and dreaming; always alive, always generous, loving and kind."

"An unusual sensation possesses my breast — a sensation which I once thought could never pervade it on any occasion whatever. It is pleasure, pleasure, my dear Lucy, on leaving my paternal roof."

"You ask me, my friend, whether I am in pursuit of truth, or a lady? I answer, both. I hope and trust they are united; and really expect to find truth and the virtues and graces besides in a fair form."

"He is a gay man, my dear, to say no more; and such are the companions we wish when we join a party avowedly formed for pleasure."

"The mind, after being confined at home for a while, sends the imagination abroad in quest of new treasures; and the body may as well accompany it."

"Can you, who have always been used to serenity and order in a family, to rational, refined, and improving conversation, relinquish them, and launch into the whirlpool of frivolity, where the correct taste and the delicate sensibility which you possess must constantly be wounded by the frothy and illiberal sallies of licentious wit?"

"It is by surmounting difficulties, not by sinking under them, that we discover our fortitude. True courage consists not in flying from the storms of life; but in braving and steering through them with prudence. Avoid solitude. It is the bane of a disordered mind; though of great utility to a healthy one."

"Wealth and titles, which were sure to be heaped on the hero or heroine of the tale at last, she considered as the ultimatum of all sublunary good."

"... she had on a blue bonnet, and with a pair of lovely eyes of the same color, has contrived to make me feel devilish odd about the heart."

"The mind of youth eagerly catches at promised pleasure: pure and innocent by nature, it thinks not of the dangers lurking beneath those pleasures, till too late to avoid them."

"Oh my dear girls, for to such only am I writing, listen not to the voice of love, unless sanctioned by paternal approbation; be assured it is now past the days of romance."

"Of all the pleasures of which the human mind is sensible, there is none equal to that which warms and expands the bosom, when listening to commendations bestowed on us by a beloved object, and are conscious of having deserved them."

"Pleasure is a vain illusion; she draws you on to a thousand follies, errors, and I may say vices, and then leaves you to deplore your thoughtless credulity."

"The very basis of true peace of mind is a benevolent wish to see all the world as happy as one's Self; and from my soul do I pity the selfish churl, who, remembering the little bickerings of anger, envy, and fifty other disagreeables to which frail mortality is subject, would wish to revenge the affront which pride whispers him he has received."

"... my boys, with only moderate incomes, when placed in the church, at the bar, or in the field, may exert their talents, make themselves friends, and raise their fortunes on the basis of merit."

"... while discretion points out the impropriety of my conduct, inclination urges me on to ruin."

"... the heart that is truly virtuous is ever inclined to pity and forgive the errors of its fellow creatures."

"Let no one who wishes to receive agreeable impressions of American manners, commence their travels in a Mississippi steamboat."

"I sometimes think, sir, that your fences might be in more thorough repair, and your roads in better order, if less time was spent in politics."

"Situated on an island which I think it will one day cover, it rises like Venice from the sea, and like that fairest of cities in the days of her glory, receives into its lap tribute of all the riches of the earth."

"A single word indicative of doubt, that any thing, or every thing, in that country is not the very best in the world, produces an effect which must be seen and felt to be understood. If the citizens of the United States were indeed the devoted patriots they call themselves, they would surely not thus encrust themselves in the hard, dry, stubborn persuasion, that they are the first and best of the human race, that nothing is to be learnt, but what they are able to teach, and that nothing is worth having, which they do not possess."

"A Learned Woman is thought to be a Comet, that bodes Mischief, when ever it appears. To offer to the World the liberal Education of Women is to deface the Image of God in Man, it will make Women so high, and men so low, like Fire in the House-tops it will set the whole world in a Flame. These things and worse than these, are commonly talked of, and verily believed by many, who think themselves wise Men: to contradict these is a bold attempt."

"Let not your Ladiships be offended that I do not (as some have wittily done) plead for Female Preeminence. To ask too much is the way to be denied all."

"I am Queen Amina, feared cavalry warrior, ruler of Zazzau and all of Hausaland. Ride with me to victory."

"A wise investment. This will finance the upcoming cavalry raid."

"Your counsel is accepted."

"My emirs said the French have very beautiful palaces and that they would rather preserve than destroy them."

"The palace of the other Hausa ruler is more beautiful and influential than mine. I shall offer my sword to survive in grace."

"My Nigerian princes requested that I pay an absurd amount of money for their ransom. What frauds!"

"Defend the Trading Posts to secure our trade monopoly!"

"You can get away with that one, but count yourself lucky if I let you get more than that."

"Did you not hunt for food? If you do not gather the resources to age up soon, you will quickly become the hunted."

"The Hausa would rather make peace than fight with you. Can we come to an agreement?"

"[She continued to] wage war in the Hausa lands and conquered them all, so that the men of Katsina and the men of Kano brought her tribute."

"Amina daughter of Nikatau, a woman as capable as a man."

"Here before my eyes is our sweet Saviour crowned with thorns. My crown would mock Him if I dared kneel at His feet bedecked with gold and jewels."

"The Lord came all the way from heaven to earth for us, so we can surely go the short distance from the castle to Eisenach for Him! ... We must not sadden God with sullen looks. Whatever we do, we must do gladly."

"The last request of Christ was that we should love one another as He loved us. But are we obeying Him, dear Brother? The moment we own anything we want to increase our possessions by depriving some one else. And if we are asked to share what we own, we are unwilling to part with it. We are made loveless by our possessions."

"We women were allowed to stand at the Cross. We saw His wounds bleed and His eyes grow dim. As He was dying Jesus put His faith in us, we were to carry His love through the whole world and here we sit and have forgotten Him."

"The ministering Saint, fresh from the poor of Christ."

"Il y a une étoile, qui unit les âmes du premier ordre malgré les lieux et les siècles qui les séparent."

"Les religieuses et les femmes mariées sont malheureuses de différente manière."

"Your virtue may raise you above the glory of being king. The sort of honour that goes down to our children with real lustre is derived from our deeds and qualities, not from power or titles. For myself, I do not wish to be the wife of a king, but of a general who can make himself superior to the greatest king, not only by courage, but by magnanimity, and superiority to any less elevated motive than duty"

"She bore me great affection, and I had none the less for her. Death deprived me of a great friend."

"In this age of innovation, perhaps no experiment will have an influence more important on the character and happiness of our society, than the granting to females the advantages of ... education. The honor of this triumph ... belongs to the men of America. They appear willing to risk the hazard of proving, experimentally, whether that degree of literature, which only can qualify woman to become ... an instructive as well as agreeable friend, be compatible with the cheerful discharge of her domestic duties, and that delicacy of feeling, and love of retirement, which nature so obviously imposes on the sex."

"All that I intended was, that self-control, in every station and to every individual, is indispensable, if people would retain that equanimity of mind, which depending on self-respect, is the essential of contentment and happiness."

"Readers soon tire of prefaces, and skip them, and so the labor of writing them is lost."

"A day of bliss is quickly told, A thousand would not make us old As one of sorrow doth— It is by cares, by woes and tears, We round the sum of human years——"

"Her husband requested she would read, and she determined to read; her husband wished her to talk, and she resolved to talk. ... Then she had the habit into which your poor conversationalists usually fall, namely, asking questions."

"There is something in the decay of nature that awakens thought, even in the most trifling mind. The person who can regard the changes in the forest foliage,—that can watch the slow circles of the dead leaf, as it falls from the bough of some lofty tree, till it mingles with the thousands already covering the ground beneath, and not moralize is—not a person that I would advise to retire to the country, in search of happiness. He or she had better stay in the city and be amused. Those who cannot think, have, in my opinion, a necessity (which goes very far towards creating a right) for amusement."

"There is no influence so powerful as that of the mother. ... But next in rank and efficacy to that pure and holy source of moral influence, is that of the schoolmaster."

"Americans have two ardent passions; the love of liberty, and love of distinction. These passions mutually stimulate and increase each other ; the enjoyment of equal rights as citizens giving every man a chance of becoming eminent, and that eminence being derived from living under a free government, the Americans are thus necessarily as ambitious of fame as they are tenacious of freedom."

"Why is it that water, so monotonous in its characteristics, should nevertheless, possess a charm for every mind? I believe it is chiefly because it bears the impress of the Creator, which we feel neither the power of time or of man can efface or alter."

"Some one has called flowers the poetry of earth. They are only its Lyrical poetry. Water is the grand Epic of creation; and there is not a human soul but feels the influence of its majesty, its power or its beauty."

"There is hardly a more heart-thrilling pleasure enjoyed by mortals, than that which parents feel when seeing their child first being able to 'catch knowledge of objects.'"

"Riches are always overestimated; the enjoyment they give is more in the pursuit than the possession."

"Happiness is, in truth, a very cheap thing when the heart will be contented to traffic with nature—art has quite a different price."

"It requires but a few threads of hope, for the heart that is skilled in the secret, to weave a web of happiness."

"There are few sensations more painful than in the midst of deep grief, to know the season which we have always associated with mirth and rejoicing is at hand."

"There is small danger of being starved in our land of plenty; but the danger of being stuffed is imminent, and yet hardly a thought is bestowed on the subject by those who direct the public sentiment."

"You may indulge any childish propensity with less injury to the intellect than that of gluttony. Eating to excess constantly will deaden or destroy the energies of the mind, while those of the animal are increased, till the immortal becomes perfectly swinish—and yet many tender, delicate mothers seem to think, that to make their children eat is all that is requisite to make them great."

"Mr. and Mrs. R. persuaded themselves that, while they kept the Sabbath day with pharisaical strictness, the other six days were their own. They strove for earth and sighed for heaven, and failed of enjoyment in the pursuit of either."

"What a ready passport wealth gives its possessor to the good opinions of this world!"

"Mary had a little lamb, Its fleece was white as snow, And every where that Mary went The lamb was sure to go."

"And you each gentle animal In confidence may bind, And make them follow at your call, If you are always kind."

"Though youth be past and beauty fled, The constant heart its pledge redeems, Like Box that guards the flowerless bed And brighter from the contrast seems."

"The violet bank, the moss-fringed seat Beneath the drooping tree."

"To speak without metaphor—the engrossing pursuit of Americans is wealth."

"What in the rising man was industry and economy, becomes in the rich man parsimony and avarice."

"A man is never more self satisfied than when he is confirming a favorite theory."

"It is a bad business, dealing in lottery tickets...Riches got in such a hasty manner never wear well."

"This is a speculating and selfish age; and to think "money will answer all things," is too much the characteristic of Americans."

"A few hundred dollars will dry the weeping eyes of the most despairing damsel, and make her think the defection of her plighted swain a very lucky speculation—and so instead of breaking her own heart, she very coolly determines to break his credit, comforting herself with the thought that cash is more current than love."

"O, beautiful rainbow, All woven of light! There's not in thy tissue, One shadow of night:— It seems as heav'n opened, When thou dost appear, And a visible presence Of angels drew near, And sung the rainbow, The rainbow— The smile of God is here."

"Let no one understand me as speaking lightly of that Catechism. It was framed by good men, and doubtless with the best intentions. But there can be no perfect system of faith as expounded by men; and there should be no creed which requires the human mind to render its unqualified assent before it has examined and reflected."

"Crackers toasted or hard bread may be added a short time before the soup is wanted; but do not put in those libels on civilized cookery, called dumplings! One might about as well eat, with the hope of digesting, a brick from the ruins of Babylon, as one of the hard, heavy masses of boiled dough which usually pass under this name."

"Nor need we power or splendor, Wide halls or lordly dome, The good, the true, the tender, These form the wealth of home."

"Hail, Holy Day! the blessing from above Brightens thy presence like a smile of love, Smoothing, like oil upon a stormy sea, The roughest waves of human destiny— Cheering the good, and to the poor oppressed Bearing the promise of their heavenly rest."

"Rugged strength and radiant beauty— These were one in nature's plan; Humble toil and heavenward duty— These will form the perfect man!"

"What matter though the scorn of fools be given, If the path followed lead us on to heaven!"

"Woman's empire, holier, more refined, Moulds, moves and sways the fall'n but God-breathed mind, Lifting the earth-crushed heart to hope and heaven."

"Oh! wondrous power, how little understood, Entrusted to the Mother's mind alone To fashion genius, form the soul for good, Inspire a West, or train a Washington!"

"And evermore the Deep has worshipped God; And Bards and Prophets tune their mystic lyres While listening to the music of the floods."

"Beauty was lent to nature as the type Of heaven's unspeakable and holy joy, Where all perfection makes the sum of bliss."

"We have said little of the "Rights of Woman." Her first right is to education, in its Widest sense—to such education as will give her the full development of all her personal, mental, and moral qualities. Having that, there will be no longer any question about her rights; and rights are liable to be perverted to wrongs when we are incapable of rightly exercising them."

"The most welcome guest in society will ever be the one to whose mind every thing is a suggestion, and whose words suggest something to everybody."

"What has made this nation great? Not its heroes, but its households."

"Crush the serpent in the head, Break ill egs yer they be hatched. Kill bad chickens in the tread, Fledge[d] they hardly can be catched. In the rising stifle ill, Lest it grow against thy will."

"Our best life is to die well: for living here we enjoy nothing: things past are dead and gone: things present are alwayes ending: things future alwayes beginning: while we live we die; and we leave dying, when we leave living."

"There be foure good mothers have foure bad daughters: Trueth hath Hatred; Prosperity hath Pride; Security hath Perill; and Familiarity hath Contempt."

"A faire woman is a paradise to the eye, a purgatorye to the purse, and a hell to the soule."

"The right Education of the Female Sex, as it is in a manner every where neglected, so it ought to be generally lamented. Most in this depraved later Age think a Woman learned and wise enough if she can distinguish her Husbands Bed from anothers."

"There is so much servility in rigor and restraint, that of consequence there can be no greater ene∣my to Ingenuity and good nature. Fools are to be always bauld upon, and blows are fitter for beasts than rational creatures; wherefore there can nothing more engage an ingenious generous soul, than cheerfulness and liberty; not over-frightned."

"Then for the sake of Freedom’s name, (Since British wisdom scorns repealing) Come sacrifice to Patriot fame, And give up tea by way of healing."

"Since the men from a party or fear of a frown, Are kept by a sugar-plum quietly down, Supinely asleep—and depriv'd of their sight, Are stipp'd of their freedom, and robb'd of their right; If the sons, so degenerate! the blessings despise, Let the Daughters of Liberty nobly arise; And though we've no voice but a negative here, The use of the taxables, let us forbear:— (Then merchants import till your stores are all full, May the buyers be few, and your traffic be dull!) Stand firmly resolv'd, and bid Grenville to see, That rather than freedom we part with our tea."

"Eunice Allen see the Indians comeing And hoped to save herself by running And had not her petticoats stopt her The awful creatures had not cotched her Nor tommyhawked her on her head And left her on the ground for dead."

"Having learned that the English lady to whom some of her daughters were sent to school, had placed the pupils connected with persons in public life (her children amongst the number) at the upper end of the table, upon the ground that the young ladies of rank should sit together, Mrs. Bache sent her word that in this country there was no rank but rank mutton."

"Behold this ruin! 'Twas a skull Once of ethereal spirit full! This narrow cell was Life's retreat; This place was Thought's mysterious seat! What beauteous pictures fill'd that spot, What dreams of pleasure, long forgot! Nor Love, nor Joy, nor Hope, nor Fear, Has left one trace, one record here."

"But what is Woman?—only one of Nature's agreeable blunders."

"Secrets are pleasant to each child of Eve."

"His ardent looks—his sighs—his consusion—his respectful attentions, have a thousand times profess'd the strongest passion—Surely, a man cannot in honour, be exculpated, who by such methods defrauds a Woman of her heart."

"Your great spirits are mere Jack-a-lanterns in the brain—they dance about, shine, and make vagaries—while those who possess happiness, soberly and quietly enjoy their treasure."

"Love has forc'd Heroes to forget their valour, and Philosophers their systems—no wonder he shou'd make a Woman forget her wrinkles."

"Five minutes! Zounds! I have been five minutes too late all my life-time!"

"Vanity, like murder, will out."

"Every body about me seem'd happy—but every body seem'd in a hurry to be happy somewhere else."

"It requires genius to make a good pun—some men of bright parts can't reach it."

"Misery follows sin; sin itself is misery; and the soul that sinneth dies of course, without any means taken to put that soul to death; though Divine interference would be indispensable to prevent the consequences following the cause."

"The real Simon Pure."

"All policy’s allowed in war and love."

"The First Time she was grave, as well she might, For Women will be damn'd sullen the first Night; But faith, they'l quickly mend, so be n't uneasie: To Night she's brisk, and trys New Tricks to please ye."

"I have gloried in my rebel countrymen! Would to God I, too, had been a patriot."

"All Europe, and the temperate parts of the vast , abound with . The , which is little regarded in warmer climates, is used for a variety of purposes in the bleak and barren , and in other northern countries. ... In the it affords a dye. en cloth boiled in water, and afterwards in a strong decoction made from the green tops and flowers of this plant, becomes of a beautiful orange-colour. Brettius relates, that a kind of ale brewed from these young tops was much used by the : and it is said to be still an ingredient in the beer in some of the Western Isles. In many parts of Great Britain s are made of this Heath; and it is an excellent fuel. The flowers are either a kind of rose-colour slightly tinged with purple, or they are quite white. Bees collect a great quantity of honey from them."

"The is an evergreen shrub, with fine glossy leaves: the honey-breathing blossoms, as Evelyn terms them, come out in May; they are numerous, but very small, and are very grateful to bees. It is a native of Europe and , and was introduced into this country in 1629."

"is thought to make the best , and its soot is a good lamp-black for printers' ink. The leaves are good fodder for horses, kine, sheep, and goats; and the seeds are the favourite food of the ."

"... queen Elizabeth ... is said to have planted an with her own hand at , in which she was brought up when an infant. It went always by her name, and I remember it a stately flourishing tree, except that the top was decayed. It stood at the upper end of , near where the turnpike now is, and was boundary of the parish on the north side. It was felled, to the great regret of the neighbourhood, on the 11th of November 1745, and sold for a , by lord of the manor."

"The , from the esculent quality of the s, which, in times of scarcity, are frequently eaten by the poor in the south of France, ground, and made into bread: some eat them fresh like nuts; they are sweet, and very different from our s. This Oak was cultivated by in 1739."

"says that the gum-resin, called ', is supposed to be the incense formerly used by the ancients in their religious ceremonies, though not the substance known by that name in shops. It is much employed by the Roman Catholics in their chapels, for similar uses: when burned, it diffuses a very fragrant smell. This olibanum, or true frankincense, has been supposed to be the produce of the , but that plant does not afford any resin. The olibanum now sold in the shops is the produce of the ."

"The is most appropriately named, for, in addition to the pensive drooping appearance of its branches, it is common to see little drops of water, which stand like fallen tears upon the leaves. The willow will grow in any but a dry soil, but most delights and best thrives in the immediate neighbourhood of water."

"Bess Kent is an enigmatic figure. We know she wrote voluminous letters, in which she laid her heart bare, but few have survived. We know that she wrote at least three books — two about flowers and trees and one for children, and that she planned to write another — but we know little about how she conducted her research, or how long these books took her to write. In the late 1810s and early 1820s she attempted to wean herself off , but there is little to indicate when she first developed this addiction. She made at least one suicide attempt and threatened to make others, but the circumstances surrounding them are a matter of conjecture."

"The time spent with a lover is an ending in itself, not a prelude to a more desirable circumstance"

".I just feel that a man's appetite for plurality corresponds to their tremendous reproductive potential."

"It wasn't love. It wasn't romance. I don't know what to call it, but it was much more refreshing than fairy-tales and deceitfully implied suggestions of a future together"

"I realized something profound: love is it's own entity. It stands by itself or else I wouldn't have been able to remain in love without the man who inspired it."

"I wanted all that was due to me"

"Sir, you’ll surely be welcome at our place, poor thought ‘tis,"

"I am sure you will find no better wife anywhere.”"

"Man always acts to achieve goals; the goal of the Christian is the glory of God, “I hope my studies have brought glory to God, as there were useful to others, and derived from obedience, because that was my father’s will. Now I have found better ways and means to serve God, and to be useful to others."

"To avoid this it is best, indeed necessary, that female minds – as they say – having been elevated enough on their own and filled, be kept away entirely from the liberal disciplines and be content with the management of domestic affairs, busying themselves with the needle and the spindle; these things, and others of this kind, are proper to women, unlike pen and paper, since nothing is really more irritating than a learned woman in a debate. Most equitable judges, these things are the fortifications and foundations that must be overturned and destroyed. I dare to promise that the opinion of all your adversaries will be rejected by me as a thing of no importance”."

"Do they show science or wit? If their works are bad, they are jeered at; if they are good, they are taken from them, and they are left only with ridicule for letting themselves be called authors."

"Do they display science or pretty wit? If their works are bad, they get a bird; if they are good, one robbed them; they keep merely the ridiculousness of having presented themselves as the authoresses."

"A poor gentlewoman, doctor, is the worst thing in the world"

"I shall go on making sublime and philosophical discoveries, and employing myself in deep, abstract studies."

"Nobody is such a fool as to moider away his time in the slip-slop conversation of a pack of women."

"I have nothing to fear… I am the sun, the stars, the pearl, the lion, the light from heaven."

"I shall not allow the pension… to be stopped by force: I shall resign it,"

"It is only the vulgar who are always fancying themselves insulted. If a man treads on another's toe in good society, do you think it is taken as an insult?"

"My dear nephew was only in his sixth year when I came to be detached from the family circle. But this did not hinder John and I from remaining the most affectionate friends, and many a half or whole holiday he was allowed to spend with me, was dedicated to making experiments in chemistry, where generally all boxes, tops of tea-canisters, pepper-boxes, teacups, &c., served for the necessary vessels, and the sand-tub furnished the matter to be analysed. I only had to take care to exclude water, which would have produced havoc on my carpet."

"With saddened heart but unflagging determination she continued to work for her brother, but saw his domestic happiness pass into other keeping. It is not to be supposed, however, that a nature so strong and a heart so affectionate should accept the new state of things without much and bitter suffering. To resign the supreme place by her brother's side, which she had filled for sixteen years with such hearty devotion, could not he otherwise than painful in any case; but how much more so in this, where equal devotion to the same pursuit must have made identity of interest and purpose as complete as it is rare! One who could both feel and express herself so strongly was not likely to fall into her new place without some outward expression of what it cost her—tradition confirms the assumption—and it is easy to understand how this long, significant silence is due to the light of later wisdom and calmer judgment which counseled the destruction of all record of what was likely to be painful to survivors.""

"In my brother's absence from home, I was, of course, left solely to amuse myself with my own thoughts, which were anything but cheerful. I found I was to be trained for an assistant astronomer, and, by way of encouragement, a telescope adapted for 'sweeping,' consisting of a tube with two glasses, such as are commonly used in a 'finder,' was given me. I was 'to sweep for comets,' and I see by my journal that I began August 22, 1782, to write down and describe all remarkable appearances I saw in my 'sweeps,' which were horizontal. But it was not till the last two months of the same year that I felt the least encouragement to spend the starlight nights on a grass-plot covered with dew or hoar-frost, without a human being near enough to be within call; for I knew too little of the real heavens to be able to point out every object so as to find it again without losing too much time by consulting the atlas. But all these troubles were removed when I knew my brother to be at no great distance, making observations with his various instruments on double stars, planets, etc., and I could have his assistance immediately when I found a nebula, or cluster of stars, of which I intended to give a catalogue; .but, at the end of 1783, I had only marked fourteen, when my sweeping was interrupted by being employed to write down my brother's observations with the large twenty-foot. I had, however, the comfort to see that my brother was satisfied with my endeavors to assist him when he wanted another person, either to run to the clocks, write down a memorandum, fetch and carry instruments, or measure the ground with poles, etc., of which something of the kind every moment would occur."

"The employment of writing down the observations when my brother uses the twenty-foot reflector does not often allow me time to look at the heavens; but, as he is now on a visit to Germany, I have taken the opportunity to sweep in the neighborhood of the sun in search of comets; and last night, the 1st of August, about ten o'clock, I found an object very much resembling in color and brightness the 27 nebulæ of the Connoissance des Temps, with the difference, however, of being round. I suspected it to be a comet; but, a haziness coming on, it was not possible to satisfy myself as to its motion till this evening.""

""I wish you joy most sincerely on the discovery. I am more pleased than you can well conceive that you have made it, and I think I see your wonderfully clever and wonderfully amiable brother, upon the news of it, shed a tear of joy. You have immortalized your name, and you deserve such a reward for your assiduity in the business of astronomy, and for your love for so celebrated and deserving a brother."

"It may easily be supposed that I must have been fully employed (besides minding the heavens) to prepare everything as well as I could against the time I was to give up the place of housekeeper on the 8th of May.""

"My Friends Write to Me from America that Joseph Wright (my Son) "has Painted a Likeness and also moddel’d a Clay Bust of General Washington which will be a very great honour to My Famaly.""

"I most heartly thank my god for Sparing My life to See this hapy day."

"I joyne with all My friends in the pleasing prospect that Posterity will See, and behold the Statue of the man who was apointed by his Contry, and the voice of the Enlightend Part of Mankind to be the great general to Save the Liberties of the Christian Religion and Stop the Pride and Insolence of old England. and by his truly great and Noble Example in all human Vertues he has Restord Peace on Earth, good Will toward mankind."

"Truly hapy are You Sir, to have the greatful thanks of all Europe—with the Prayir of the Widows and the Fatherless—You have my most greatful thanks for your Kind atention to my Son in taking him in to your Famaly to encourage his genii and giving him the pleasing opertunity of taking a Likeness that has I Sincerly hope, gave his Contry and your Friends Sir, Satisfaction."

"I am Impatient to have a Copy of what he has done that I may have the honour of making a model from it in Wax Work—it has been for some time the Wish and desire of my heart to moddel a Likeness of generel Washington, then I shall think my Self ariv’d at the End of all my Earthly honours and Return in Peace to Enjoy my Native Country. I am Sir with gratitude an Respect Your very humble Servnt"

"I was an artist with many social connections, and – don’t tell! – I may have been a spy. I was born on Long Island, New York in 1725, but by the time I was four I was living in Bordentown, New Jersey. My father was a devout Quaker, and I was passionate about art, especially sculpting, so when I was twenty-one I moved to Philadelphia, the center of American art. I married a fellow Quaker, Joseph Wright, and we moved back to Bordentown, before he unexpectedly died in 1769. But I didn’t give up my art dreams, and along with my sister Rachel, who was also a widow, we started a business making wax sculptures, and soon we had salons in Philadelphia and New York City. I met Benjamin Franklin, and he convinced me to move to London and introduced me to important people who wanted to be sculpted. Things were bad between Britain and its colonies, and I supported the efforts of Prime Minister William Pitt who was trying to reconcile everyone. But at the same time, while my many subjects – including the King himself – were posing, we’d talk openly and honestly about what was going on. If any valuable military or political news came my way, I’d write it in a letter to the Continental Congress, which I would then smuggle out in my wax statues. I also tried to help American prisoners of war who were jailed in England. And at the same time, I also tried to compensate Loyalists for their losses. I wanted to get back to New Jersey, but I died in London in 1786. Nobody knows where I am buried."

"It is the merit of those who praise that makes the value of the commendation."

"To envy anybody is to confess ourselves his inferior."

"To love is to make a compact with sorrow."

"In love, great pleasures come very near great sorrows."

"Benevolence rejuvenates the heart, exercise, the memory, and remembrance, life."

"Calumny spreads like an oil-spot: we endeavor to cleanse it, but the mark remains."

"A woman would be in despair if nature had formed her as fashion makes her appear."

"In a tête-à-tête we are never more interrupted than when we say nothing."

"Virtue and Love are two ogres: one must eat the other."

"I have seen more than one woman drown her honor in the clear water of diamonds."

"For my part, I remained a close prisoner, without a visit from a single person, none of my most intimate friends daring to come near me, through the apprehension that such a step might prove injurious to their interests. Thus it is ever in Courts. Adversity is solitary, while prosperity dwells in a crowd; the object of persecution being sure to be shunned by his nearest friends and dearest connections."

"Besides, I had found a secret pleasure, during my confinement, from the perusal of good books, to which I had given myself up with a delight I never before experienced. I consider this as an obligation I owe to fortune, or, rather, to Divine Providence, in order to prepare me, by such efficacious means, to bear up against the misfortunes and calamities that awaited me. By tracing nature in the universal book which is opened to all mankind, I was led to the knowledge of the Divine Author. Science conducts us, step by step, through the whole range of creation, until we arrive, at length, at God. Misfortune prompts us to summon our utmost strength to oppose grief and recover tranquillity, until at length we find a powerful aid in the knowledge and love of God, whilst prosperity hurries us away until we are overwhelmed by our passions. My captivity and its consequent solitude afforded me the double advantage of exciting a passion for study, and an inclination for devotion, advantages I had never experienced during the vanities and splendour of my prosperity."