Margaret Deland famous quotes

Truth is like heat or light; its vibrations are endless, and are endlessly felt.
-- Margaret Deland

#Inspirational #Light #Vibrations

Nobody who is somebody looks down on anybody.
-- Margaret Deland

#Army #Looks

One must desire something to be alive.
-- Margaret Deland

#Dream #Desire #Alive

A pint can't hold a quart - if it holds a pint it is doing all that can be expected of it.
-- Margaret Deland

#Expected

As soon as you feel too old to do a thing, do it.
-- Margaret Deland

#Inspiration #Feels

One must desire something to be alive; perhaps absolute satisfaction is only another name for Death.
-- Margaret Deland

#Names #Desire #Alive

conceit is the devil's horse, and reformers generally ride it when they are in a hurry.
-- Margaret Deland

#Horse #Devil #Conceit

silence is very moving to youth, for who knows what it hides?
-- Margaret Deland

#Moving #Silence #Youth

Grandmother belongs to the generation of women who were satisfied to have men retain their vices, if they removed their hats.
-- Margaret Deland

#Grandmother #Men #Vices

we've all of us got to meet the devil alone. Temptation is a lonely business ...
-- Margaret Deland

#Lonely #Temptation #Devil

as everybody knows, truthfulness and agreeable manners are often divorced on the ground of incompatibility.
-- Margaret Deland

#Manners #Incompatibility #Truthfulness

there couldn't be war, unless lies were believed. War has to be nourished by lies.
-- Margaret Deland

#War #Lying

War is wicked, beause it is murder and hate. And it is foolish, because hate and murder can only destroy people's bodies, not change their minds.
-- Margaret Deland

#Hate #War #People

weakness is a great bully without knowing it ...
-- Margaret Deland

#Knowing #Bully #Weakness

In connection with death, or birth, or love, modesty is only a rather puerile self-consciousness.
-- Margaret Deland

#Self #Connections #Modesty

it's better to be crazy on one point and happy, than sane on all points and unhappy.
-- Margaret Deland

#Crazy #Unhappy #Sanity

I notice that when people have no sense of responsibility, you call them either criminals or geniuses.
-- Margaret Deland

#Responsibility #People #Criminals

there are few things that are more endearing than the grace of listening with attention; indeed, it is more than endearing, it is impressive - for no one knows what wisdom lies concealed in silence!
-- Margaret Deland

#Lying #Silence #Grace

we middle-aged folk have the education of life, truly; we know the multiplication table of anxieties and sorrows, the subtraction table of loss, the division table of responsibility.
-- Margaret Deland

#Responsibility #Loss #Anxiety

moral vanity is the snare of good people.
-- Margaret Deland

#Vanity #People #Morality

What I object to in Mother is that she wants me to think her thoughts. Apart from the question of hypocrisy, I prefer my own.
-- Margaret Deland

#Mother #Thinking #Hypocrisy

There is a bond, it appears, between mother and child which endures as long as they do. It is independent of love; reason cannot weaken it; hate cannot destroy it.
-- Margaret Deland

#Mother #Children #Hate

Of all the bitter and heavy things in this sorry old world, the not being necessary is the bitterest and heaviest.
-- Margaret Deland

#Sorry #World #Bitter

When one promise jostles another, one of 'em isn't a promise.
-- Margaret Deland

#Promise #Ems

nothing may be more selfish than remorse ...
-- Margaret Deland

#Regret #Selfish #May

Books are like sapphires; they must be polished - polished! or else you insult your readers.
-- Margaret Deland

#Book #Sapphires #Insult

... in a wicked way, it is an incentive to good living to observe the spice of enjoyment there is to a godly soul in a very little sin.
-- Margaret Deland

#Godly #Soul #Wicked

... it is curious how fatal it is, either to a situation or to an individual, or even to a name, if in an evil moment it becomes funny.
-- Margaret Deland

#Names #Evil #Moments

... is there anything more unjust than to build gold and brass and iron on poor, well-meaning clay, -- and then blame the clay when the whole image falls into dust?
-- Margaret Deland

#Fall #Dust #Iron

Hearts don't come when Reason whistles to 'em.
-- Margaret Deland

#Heart #Ems #Reason

Fighting should be left to dogs and cats and chickens, who can't reason.
-- Margaret Deland

#Dog #Cat #Fighting

... Love never forgets; or if it does, it is an imperfect love, like the beautiful love of a dog, faithful and unreasoning.
-- Margaret Deland

#Beautiful #Dog #Faithful

If you are kind to an enemy, you cannot hate him.
-- Margaret Deland

#Hate #Enemy #Kind

... if a man really and truly believed that black was white, you might advise him to see an oculist, but you mustn't call him a liar.
-- Margaret Deland

#Liars #Men #White

When did Youth ever thank Age for its wisdom?
-- Margaret Deland

#Age #Youth

I have heard that a man might be his own lawyer, but you can't be your own judge.
-- Margaret Deland

#Men #Judging #Might

... when personal happiness conflicts with any great human ideal, the right to claim such happiness is as nothing compared to the privilege of resigning it.
-- Margaret Deland

#Privilege #Conflict #Claims

... perhaps there is no conceit so arrogant as the conceit which follows a conviction of emancipation.
-- Margaret Deland

#Arrogant #Conviction #Conceit

Absurdity is the one thing love can't stand; it can overlook anything else, -- coldness, or weakness, or viciousness, -- but just be ridiculous and that's the end of it!
-- Margaret Deland

#Weakness #Ridiculous #Ends

There is no embarrassment quite like the embarrassment of listening to a person for whom one has a regard making a fool of himself.
-- Margaret Deland

#Listening #Fool #Embarrassment

Isn't there any statute of limitation in things spiritual? I don't believe any large mind dwells on its sins, any more than on its virtues!
-- Margaret Deland

#Spiritual #Believe #Mind

... there must be reserves -- except with God. The human soul is solitary. But for confession that is different; justice and reparation sometimes demand it; but, again, justice and courage sometimes forbid it.
-- Margaret Deland

#Justice #Soul #Different

I've always thought the law ought to put on spectacles, it has mighty poor eyesight once in a while.
-- Margaret Deland

#Law #Poor #Eyesight

Age, with shamefaced relief, has learned the solvent quality of Time. It is this quality which makes possible the contemplation of certain embarrassing heavenly reunions ...
-- Margaret Deland

#Age #Quality #Relief

... safety that depends on an apron-string is very unsafe!
-- Margaret Deland

#Safety #Aprons #Strings

... some of the things floating about in the Well of Memory are not worth recording.
-- Margaret Deland

#Memories #Floating #Wells

Some time in our lives every man and woman of us, putting out our hands toward the stars, touch on either side our prison walls the immutable limitations of temperament
-- Margaret Deland

#Stars #Wall #Men

A letter is a risky thing; the writer gambles on the reader's frame of mind.
-- Margaret Deland

#Mind #Letters #Reader

I'm not to blame for an old body, but I would be to blame for an old soul. An old soul is a shameful thing.
-- Margaret Deland

#Soul #Would Be #Body

anger as well as love casts out fear ...
-- Margaret Deland

#Anger #Casts #Wells

The anger of slow, mild, loving people has a lasting quality that mere bad-tempered folk cannot understand.
-- Margaret Deland

#Anger #People #Quality

To talk over a quarrel, with its inevitable accompaniment of self-justification, is too much like handling cobwebs to be very successful.
-- Margaret Deland

#Successful #Self #Cobwebs

There's one thing that always interests me about you good people, not your certainty that the rest of us are swine, - no doubt we are, - but your certainty that your opinions are pearls.
-- Margaret Deland

#People #Arrogance #Doubt

Twenty-five years ago, Christmas was not the burden that it is now; there was less haggling and weighing, less quid pro quo, less fatigue of body, less weariness of soul; and, most of all, there was less loading up with trash.
-- Margaret Deland

#Christmas #Years #Soul

the profession of the ministry is like matrimony: if it is possible for you to keep out of it, it's a sign that you've no business to go into it!
-- Margaret Deland

#Ministry #Clergy #Matrimony

the blue and cloudless day closes like the lid of a casket of jewels upon the violet rim of sea, and shuts out the light.
-- Margaret Deland

#Light #Blue #Jewels

Age, per se, may claim tenderness and pity, but not respect; that only comes when the years have brought humanity and wisdom and the experience that worketh hope.
-- Margaret Deland

#Years #Humanity #Age

nothing is as conventional as adolescence.
-- Margaret Deland

#Adolescence

The insolence of time is like a blow in the face from an unseen enemy.
-- Margaret Deland

#Time #Blow #Enemy

There isn't any virtue where there has never been any temptation.
-- Margaret Deland

#Temptation #Virtue

Convictions do not imply reasons.
-- Margaret Deland

#Reason #Conviction

Conscience that isn't hitched up to common sense is a mighty dangerous thing.
-- Margaret Deland

#Common Sense #Common #Dangerous

I have no faith in a human critter who hasn't one or two bad habits.
-- Margaret Deland

#Two #Habit #Critters

Every new truth begins in a shocking heresy.
-- Margaret Deland

#Truth Is #Heresy

You can't have genius without patience.
-- Margaret Deland

#Genius #Difficult #Difficult Days

A sneer is like a flame; it may occasionally be curative because it cauterizes, but it leaves a bitter scar.
-- Margaret Deland

#Positive #Flames #May

Real divorce takes place without a decree ...
-- Margaret Deland

#Real #Divorce #Decree

When two duties jostle each other, one of 'em isn't a duty.
-- Margaret Deland

#Two #Ems #Duty

Nature is perfectly impartial. Brain has no sex!
-- Margaret Deland

#Sex #Brain

a great moment raises most of the people who experience it, to its own level; and that is why they do not always recognize its greatness - or their own.
-- Margaret Deland

#Hero #Greatness #People

men love their wives not because of their virtues, but in spite of them.
-- Margaret Deland

#Men #Wife #Virtue

Home is the best place to be sick in.
-- Margaret Deland

#Home #Sick #Illness

a manufactured interest has no staying quality - especially if it involves any hard work.
-- Margaret Deland

#Hard Work #Quality #Interest

a short cut to matrimonial unhappiness is not to have the same taste in jokes!
-- Margaret Deland

#Cutting #Taste #Unhappiness

Lawyers make their cake by cooking up other people's troubles.
-- Margaret Deland

#Cake #People #Cooking

When it comes to bombshells, there are few that can be more effective than that small, flat, frail thing, a letter.
-- Margaret Deland

#Bombshells #Letters #Frail

The fact is, the secret of happiness is the sense of proportion ...
-- Margaret Deland

#Happiness #Secret #Facts

the attempt to break a habit of years is necessarily experimental.
-- Margaret Deland

#Years #Habit #Break

It is useless to deny that, unless one has a genius for imparting knowledge, teaching is a drudgery.
-- Margaret Deland

#Teaching #Genius #Useless

faith, it seems to me, is not the holding of certain dogmas; it is simply openness and readiness of heart to believe any truth which God may show.
-- Margaret Deland

#Faith #Believe #Heart

if you give way to fear, you'll be a coward; and ... a coward is apt to be a liar. The devil's first name is Fear ...
-- Margaret Deland

#Fear #Liars #Names

as I get older there is nothing more constantly astonishing to me than the goodness of the Bad; - unless it is the badness of the Good.
-- Margaret Deland

#Evil #Good And Evil #Goodness

gossip, after it reaches a certain point of insult and falsehood, becomes a source of amusement to its victims.
-- Margaret Deland

#Gossip #Amusement #Insult

by some mysterious method, Susan Carr's gossip gave the listener a gentler feeling towards his kind. When she spoke of her neighbors' faults, one knew that somehow they were simply virtues gone to seed ...
-- Margaret Deland

#Gossip #Feelings #Gone

Grief is the price Love pays for being in the same world with Death.
-- Margaret Deland

#Grief #World #Pay

habit does much to reconcile us to unpleasantness ...
-- Margaret Deland

#Doe #Habit #Reconcile

Self-sacrifice which denies common sense is not a virtue. It's a spiritual dissipation.
-- Margaret Deland

#Spiritual #Sacrifice #Self