Margaret Oliphant Quotes - Page 2

Truly there is nothing in the world so blessed or so sweet as the heritage of children.

What happiness is there which is not purchased with more or less of pain?

The incomprehensibleness of women is an old theory, but what is that to the curious wondering observation with which wives, mothers, and sisters watch the other unreasoning animal in those moments when he has snatched the reins out of their hands, and is not to be spoken to! . It is best to let him come to, and feel his own helplessness.

Many love me, but by none am I enough beloved.

I have my own way of dividing people, as I suppose most of us have. There are those whom I can talk to, and those whom I can't.

I scarcely remember any writer who has ever ventured to say that the half of the work of the world is actually accomplished by women; and very few husbands who would be otherwise than greatly startled and amazed, if not indignant, if not derisive, at the suggestion of such an idea as that the work of their wives was equal to their own.

There's looks as speaks as strong as words.

As for pictures and museums, that don't trouble me. The worst of going abroad is that you've always got to look at things of that sort. To have to do it at home would be beyond a joke.

A hotel is a hotel all the world over, a place essentially vulgar, commonplace, venal, the travesty of a human home.

There is nothing more effectual in showing us the weakness of any habitual fallacy or assumption than to hear it sympathetically through the ears, as it were, of a skeptic.

... I have always been a disappointment to my friends. I have no gift of talk, not much to say; and though I have always been an excellent listener, that only succeeds under auspicious circumstances.

For everybody knows that it requires very little to satisfy the gentlemen, if a woman will only give her mind to it.

Terror of being found out is not always a preservative, it sometimes hurries on the act which it ought to prevent.