The quote database

Tyrannous exaction brings on servile concealment; and that again calls forth tyrannous coercion.

Our attempts to banish this importunate duty will only make it return upon us again and again, and every time in a shape more unpleasant than the former.

When I see the spirit of liberty in action, I see a strong principle at work; and this, for a while, is all I can possibly know of it.

The Revolution was made to preserve our ancient indisputable laws and liberties, and that ancient constitution of government which is our only security for law and liberty.

An armed disciplined body is, in its essence, dangerous to liberty; undisciplined, it is ruinous to society.

A boy of spirit may acquire a previous and practical experience of the world; and his playfellows may be the future friends of his heart or his interest.

The affectionate heart of my aunt, Catherine Porten, bewailed a sister and a friend; but my poor father was inconsolable, and the transport of grief seemed to threaten his life or his reason.

The style shall be simple and familiar; but style is the image of character; and the habits of correct writing may produce, without labour or design, the appearance of art and study.

Perhaps when all is written courageously, I shall have no courage left to publish it.

The unity of God preserves a unity in men--that is, a perpetual sympathy between man and man--which sympathy we must be subject to, if not in our joys, yet in our griefs.

you would wonder at seeing how possible it is to live as secludedly in the midst of a multitude as in the centre of solitude

Once I wished not to live, but the faculty of life seems to have sprung up in me again, from under the crushing foot of heavy grief.

There are probably as many different dialects for the heart as for the tongue, are there not?

Life is not only short, but uncertain, and art is not only long, but absorbing.

In our sorrow we see the rough side of the stuff; in our joys the smooth; and who shall say that when the taffeta is turned the most silk may not be in the sorrows?

If sorrow in its reaction makes us think of our friends, let my name come among the list of yours to you, and with it let the thought come that I am not the coldest and least sincere.

Do you think I was born to live the life of an oyster, such as I do live here?

we never could differ about the worth and comfort of domestic affection

Husband, lover, nurse--not one of these, has Robert been to me, but all three together.

There is only one event in my life which never loses its bitterness; which comes back on me like a retreating wave, going and coming again, which was and is my grief--I never had but one brother who loved and comprehended me.

Oh, if our friends would but put off anatomising one till after one was safely dead, and call to mind that, previously, we have nerves to be agonised and morbid brains to be driven mad!

A man's life does not develop rightly without it, and what is called an 'improvident marriage' often appears to me a noble, righteous, and prudent act.

When gone from hence, may nobody think of me again, except when one or two may think perhaps how I loved them

But with common sense, self-reliance, and attention to the work in hand, any woman can pursue the medical calling without risk.

If an idea, I reasoned, were really a valuable one, there must be some way of realising it.