Quotes from Emily Eden

Why is it that fools always have the instinct to hunt out the unpleasant secrets of life, and the hardiness to mention them?

It is always so, every pleasure comes exactly half an hour too late - Life! Life!

I like a good murder that can't be found out. That is, of course it is very shocking, but I like to hear about it.

Thirty morning gowns!" whispered Sarah, as they went down stairs. "The idea of a new gown every day for a month. Now I call that real happiness.

A dreary void, The leafless desert of the mind, The waste of feelings unemployed.'" "But why not employ them?" said Rose, who was not learned in Byron; "you have a home." "Such as it is." "And relations.

Prefiero ser odiado que amado con tibieza»

Ever, while you live, choose the popular side in an election; that is, if you have no particular political prejudices of your own; for there is no comparison between a reception of cheers, applause, and good-will, and one of cabbage-stalks, groans, and bad eggs. Besides, there is something exhilarating in the real, genuine affection (while it lasts) of a mob for their favourite of a day.

Now, my dear Mr. Douglas, don't go off on those tiresome foreign affairs. What can it signify which conquers which, or who dethrones who, at that distance? Let them fight it out quietly. Besides, you need not pretend to understand national feuds if you have not found out what is passing under your eyes;

Why, just what the Quaker said to the Duchess of Buckingham, when he found her, two years after her husband's death, in a darkened room, hung with black, 'What, friend, hast thou not forgiven God Almighty yet?

Oh! where is Truth? am I never to find it? I can bear artifice in the frivolities and gauds of the world–it is all artificial in itself, all heartless–but sorrow should be as true as it is sacred. Falseness there appals and disgusts me.

Mrs. Douglas; and altogether the lady was in a better disposition towards the Eskdales than she had been before the election. She had missed them as objects of observation, and had wanted somebody to find fault with.

Oh dear! how unamiable I am when I am with my uncle and aunt," thought Rachel, "thoroughly detestable I may say, and yet when I am with those girls, or little Charlie, I can be as good as gold, and so tame that that baby can lead me; I do believe evil qualities are more catching than measles.

What! another love story? My dear Blanche, I hope you are not going to turn into a match-maker; of all the dangerous manufactories in the world, that is the worst, and the most unsatisfactory.

but there is always something suspicious, to my mind, in the little shrill hurrahs which are kept up by the youthful tea drinkers at intervals during the whole day, to say nothing of their being rather unmusical. It may not be so, but sometimes it appears as if the five or six charitable gentlemen in black coats and the equally charitable ladies in black gowns who conduct the festivity order the cheers as well as the cheer; and that the hurrahs are des houras de commande.

Since trifles make the sum of human things, And half our misery from trifles springs– Oh! let the ungentle spirit learn from thence A small unkindness is a great offence.

The evening passed away better than Helen had expected. Lord Teviot's gallop had put him into better humour; and Helen's spirits rose when she was dressed for dinner. I have often observed that the petty vexations and worries of the early part of the day are taken off and folded neatly up with the morning gown; and a fresh fit of spirits and good-humour put on with the evening adornments. It is a change for the better, personally and mentally.

What am I to give the housemaids here? and do you object to my reading novels, if Lady Eskdale says there is no harm in them? They look very tempting, particularly one called Pride and Prejudice.

Pues las cosas son así: jamás apreciamos en su justa medida aquello de que gozamos mientras lo disfrutamos, pero, cuando sentimos su falta si lo perdemos entonces su valía exageramos; entonces descubrimos las virtudes que no estimamos cuando eran nuestro.

What could be more absurd than to assemble a crowd to witness a man and woman promising to love each other for the rest of their lives, when we know what human creatures are, — men so thoroughly selfish and unprincipled, women so vain and frivolous?

People may go on talking for ever of the jealousies of pretty women; but for real genuine, hard-working envy, there is nothing like an ugly woman with a taste for admiration.