Mary Elizabeth Braddon Quotes

Surely a pretty woman never looks prettier than when making tea.

it is easy to starve, but it is difficult to stoop.

My intellect is a little way upon the wrong side of that narrow boundary-line between sanity and insanity.

Why is it so difficult to love wisely, so easy to love too well?

When once estrangement has arisen between those who truly love each other, everything seems to widen the breach.

love, which is a madness, and a scourge, and a fever, and a delusion, and a snare, is also a mystery, and very imperfectly understood by everyone except the individual sufferer who writhes under its tortures.

The strongest proof of repentance is the endeavor to atone.

Amiability is the redeeming quality of fools.

Guilt soon learns to lie.

love is so very subtle an essence, such an indefinable metaphysical marvel, that its due force, though very cruelly felt by the sufferer himself, is never clearly understood by those who look on at its torments and wonder why he takes the common fever so badly.

Phoebe Marks was a person who never lost her individuality. Silent and self-contained, she seemed to hold herself within herself, and take no colour from the outer world.

Our virtues, as well as our vices, are often scourges for our own backs.

Life is such a very troublesome matter, when all is said and done, that it's as well even to take its blessings quietly.

A priest can achieve great victories with an army of women at his command.

Self-assertion may deceive the ignorant for a time; but when the noise dies away, we cut open the drum, and find it was emptiness that made the music.

Why, I can't help smiling at people, and speaking prettily to them. I know I'm no better than the rest of the world; but I can't help it if I'm pleasanter. It's constitutional.

There is "a mental fatigue which is a spurious kind of remorse, and has all the anguish of the nobler feeling. It is an utter weariness and prostration of spirit, a sickness of heart and mind, a bitter longing to lie down and die.

London's like a forest ... we shall be lost in it.

Paris is a mighty schoolmaster, a grand enlightener of the provincial intellect.

How chronic is the unconcern of men and women of the world!

There can be no reconciliation where there is no open warfare. There must be a battle, a brave boisterous battle, with pennants waving and cannon roaring, before there can be peaceful treaties and enthusiastic shaking of hands.

A modern writer likens coquettes to those hunters who do not eat the game which they have successfully pursued.

Of course there are exceptional circumstances, and there is exceptional talent; but, unhappily, exceptional talent does not always win its reward unless favoured by exceptional circumstances.

You seem to have quite a taste for discussing these horrible subjects," she said, rather scornfully; "you ought to have been a detective police officer.