Margaret Deland Quotes

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

One must desire something to be alive

A short cut to matrimonial unhappiness is not to have the same taste in jokes!

It's better to be crazy on one point and happy, than sane on all points and unhappy.

Moral vanity is the snare of good people.

Perhaps there is no conceit so arrogant as the conceit which follows a conviction of emancipation.

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

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

Habit does much to reconcile us to unpleasantness ...

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

Safety that depends on an apron-string is very unsafe!

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

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

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

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

As everybody knows, truthfulness and agreeable manners are often divorced on the ground of incompatibility.

Some of the things floating about in the Well of Memory are not worth recording.

Nothing may be more selfish than remorse ...

Nature is perfectly impartial. Brain has no sex!

Men love their wives not because of their virtues, but in spite of them.

Silence is very moving to youth, for who knows what it hides?

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.

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

Weakness is a great bully without knowing it ...

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

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

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.

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!

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

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

Home is the best place to be sick in.

Convictions do not imply reasons.

Every new truth begins in a shocking heresy.

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!

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

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

There couldn't be war, unless lies were believed. War has to be nourished by lies.

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

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

Real divorce takes place without a decree ...

A manufactured interest has no staying quality - especially if it involves any hard work.

Conceit is the devil's horse, and reformers generally ride it when they are in a hurry.

Hearts don't come when Reason whistles to 'em.

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

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

Gossip, after it reaches a certain point of insult and falsehood, becomes a source of amusement to its victims.

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.

Nothing is as conventional as adolescence.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

Nobody who is somebody looks down on anybody.

We've all of us got to meet the devil alone. Temptation is a lonely business ...

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.

Anger as well as love casts out fear ...

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

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.

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

The attempt to break a habit of years is necessarily experimental.

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

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.

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.

The fact is, the secret of happiness is the sense of proportion ...

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.

You can't have genius without patience.

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 ...

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

When did Youth ever thank Age for its wisdom?

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