It is odd what notions men seem to have of the scantiness of a woman's resources. They do not find it anything out of nature that they should be able to exist by themselves; but a woman must always be borne about on somebody's shoulders, and dandled or chirped to, or it is supposed she will fall into the blackest melancholy!
— Jane Welsh Carlyle
If I have an antipathy for any class of people, it is for fine ladies. I almost match my Husband's detestation of partridge-shooting gentlemen.
I wonder that among all the evils deprecated in the Liturgy, no one thought of inserting flitting. Is there any worse thing? Oh no, no!
Men may be rivals, opponents in their fortunes, and yet be friends in their hearts and fair towards each other's worth; but woman, the instant she is rivaled, becomes unjust.
Teaching, I find, is not the most amusing thing on earth; in fact, with a stupid lump for a Pupil, it is about the most irksome.
But what are friends? What is a husband, even, compared with one's Mother? Of her love, one is always so sure! It is the only love that nothing - not even misconduct on our part - can take away from us.
Who knows but I shall grow reasonable at last, descend from my ideal heaven to the real earth, marry, and - Oh Plato! - make a pudding?
Time is the only comforter for the loss of a mother.
It is much to be wished that one had a post that knew what it was doing again; and lawmakers that knew what they were doing. If I were the Government, I should feel rather ashamed of making regulations one month and unmaking them the next.
One of the main uses of a home is to stay in it, when one is too weak and spiritless for conforming, without effort, to the ways of other houses.
Never does one feel oneself so utterly helpless as in trying to speak comfort for great bereavement. I will not try it. Time is the only comforter for the loss of a mother.
Homeopathy - an invention of the Father of Lies! I have tried it and found it wanting. I would swallow their whole doles' medicine chest for sixpence, and be sure of finding myself neither better nor worse for it.
How many precious things do we not already possess which others have not - have hardly an idea of! Let us enjoy these, then, and bless God that we are permitted to enjoy them, rather than importune His goodness with vain longings for more.
I have lived so long among people who do not understand me, been so long accustomed to refrain and disguise myself for fear of being laughed at, that I have grown as difficult to come at as a snail in a shell; and what is worse, I cannot come out of my shell when I wish it.
Use the noble gifts which God has given you!
Young children are such nasty little beasts!
They call me 'sweet,' and 'gentle'; and some of the men go the length of calling me 'endearing,' and I laugh in my sleeve and think, 'Oh, Lord! If you but knew what a brimstone of a creature I am behind all this beautiful amiability!'
The habits of study in which I have been brought up have done much to support me. I never allow myself to be one moment unoccupied.
Either I am just what God intended me for, or God cannot 'carry out' His intentions, it would seem.
The surest way to get a thing in this life is to be prepared for doing without it, to the exclusion even of hope.
Does not a man physically tremble under the mere look of a wild beast or fellow-man that is stronger than himself? Does not a woman redden all over when she feels her lover's eyes on her? How then should one doubt the mysterious power of one individual over another?
There is never much to be feared for anyone that is born with sense and truth in him, whatever else he may have or want.
Indeed, I should be very stupid or very thankless if I did not congratulate myself every hour of the day on the lot which it has pleased Providence to assign me. My Husband is so kind! So, in all respects, after my own heart!
I declare I would rather be a kitten and cry, 'Mew!' than live as I see many of my female acquaintances do, tearing each other's characters to pieces, and wearing out their lives in vanity and vexation of spirit.
The glittering baits of titles and honours are only for children and fools.
A fashionable wife! Oh! Never will I be anything so heartless! I have pictured for myself a far higher destiny than this. - Will it ever be more than a picture?
There is nothing like a good bit of pain for taking the conceit out of one.
One feels as if it could never, never be less. And yet all griefs, when there is no bitterness in them, are soothed down by time.
I rely on the promise, 'God is kind to women, fools, and drunk people.'
'On earth the living have much to bear;' the difference is chiefly in the manner of bearing, and my manner of bearing is far from being the best.
I do think there is much truth in the Young German idea that marriage is a shockingly immoral institution, as well as what we have long known it for - an extremely disagreeable one.
