Maria Edgeworth Quotes

was an Anglo-Irish novelist and children's writer. She was one of the first realist writers in children's literature.

I've a great fancy to see my own funeral afore I die. Artificial manners vanish the moment the natural passions are touched. An orator is the worse person to tell a plain fact. How success changes the opinion of men! When one illusion vanishes, another shall appear, and, still leading me forward towards an horizon that retreats as I advance, the happy prospect of futurity shall vanish only with my existence. Remember, we can judge better by the conduct of people towards others than by their manner towards ourselves. It is unjust and absurd of those advancing in years, to expect of the young that confidence should come all and only on their side: the human heart, at whatever age, opens only to the heart that opens in return. Alarmed successively by every fashionable medical terror of the day, she dosed her children with every specific which was publicly advertised or privately recommended...The consequence was, that the dangers, which had at first been imaginary, became real: these little victims of domestic medicine never had a day's health: they looked, and were, more dead than alive. A man who sells his conscience for his interest will sell it for his pleasure. A man who will betray his country will betray his friend. My mother took too much, a great deal too much, care of me; she over-educated, over-instructed, over-dosed me with premature lessons of prudence: she was so afraid that I should ever do a foolish thing, or not say a wise one, that she prompted my every word, and guided my every action. So I grew up, seeing with her eyes, hearing with her ears, and judging with her understanding, till, at length, it was found out that I had not eyes, ears or understanding of my own. A love-match was the only thing for happiness, where the parties could any way afford it. We cannot judge either of the feelings or of the characters of men with perfect accuracy from their actions or their appearance in public; it is from their careless conversations, their half-finished sentences, that we may hope with the greatest probability of success to discover their real characters. Obtain power, then, by all means; power is the law of man; make it yours. In marrying, a man does not, to be sure, marry his wife's mother; and yet a prudent man, when he begins to think of the daughter, would look sharp at the mother; ay, and back to the grandmother too, and along the whole female line of ancestry. Let menot, even inmyownmind, committheinjustice of taking a speck for the whole. What a misfortune it isto be bornawoman!? Why seek for knowledge, which can prove only that our wretchedness is irremediable? If a ray of light break in upon us, it is but to make darkness more visible; to show usthenew limits, the Gothic structure, theimpenetrable barriers of our prison. Come when you're called; And do as you're bid; Shut the door after you; And you'll never be chid. Did the Warwickshire militia, who were chiefly artisans, teach the Irish to drink beer, or did they learn from the Irish how to drink whiskey? Sir Patrick Rackrent lived and died a monument of old Irish hospitality. Man is to be held only by the slightest chains; with the idea that he can break them at pleasure, he submits to them in sport. Possessed, as are all the fair daughters of Eve, of an hereditary propensity, transmitted to them undiminished through succeeding generations, to be 'soonmoved withtheslightesttouch of blame'; very little precept and practice will confirm them in the habit, and instruct them all the maxims, of self-justification. Young ladies who think of nothing but dress, public amusements, and forming what they call high connexions, are undoubtedly most easily managed, by the fear of what the world will say of them. Politeness only teaches us to save others from unnecessary pain.... You are not bound by politeness to tell any falsehoods. Idleness, ennui, noise, mischief, riot, and a nameless train of mistaken notions of pleasure, are often classed, in a young man's mind, under the general head of liberty. The unaffected language of real feeling and benevolence is easily understood, and is never ridiculous. Nor elves, nor fays, nor magic charm, Have pow'r, or will, to work us harm; For those who dare the truth to tell, Fays, elves, and fairies, wish them well. It sometimes requires courage to fly from danger. We may make our future by the best use of the present. There is no moment like the present. Those who are animated by hope can perform what would seem impossibilities to those who are under the depressing influence of fear. The bore is usually considered a harmless creature, or of that class of irrationa bipeds who hurt only themselves.

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