Mary Russell Mitford Quotes

To think of playing cricket for hard cash! Money and gentility would ruin any pastime under the sun.

That bad letters of every kind arise from want of the habit of thinking, I cannot doubt.

Does it not appear to you versatility is the true and rare characteristic of that rare thing called genius-versatility and playfulness? In my mind they are both essential.

Friendship is the bread of the heart.

I have had a great misfortune; my dear old dog is dead.

I have still the best comforts of life - books and friendships - and I trust never to lose my relish for either.

Prejudices of taste, likings and dislikings, are not always vanquishable by reason ...

I prepare myself for all disappointments by expecting nothing ...

There is no running away from a great grief.

Trees and children are, of all living things, those whose growth soonest makes one feel one's age ...

I have discovered that our great favorite, Miss Austen, is my countrywoman ... with whom mamma before her marriage was acquainted. Mamma says that she was then the prettiest, silliest, most affected, husband-hunting butterfly she ever remembers ...

Well, great authors are great people - but I believe that they are best seen at a distance.

No fear of forgetting the good-humoured faces that meet us in our walks each day.

We may admire people for being wise, but we like them best when they are foolish.

Autumn glows upon us like a splendid evening; it is the very sunset of the year ...

Buonaparte is certainly writing, or rather dictating, his memoirs. He walks backwards and forwards with his hands behind him, and dictates so fast that two or three of his suite are obliged to be in attendance, that the one may take down one-half of a sentence, and another the rest; they then literally compare notes, and put the disjointed legs and wings and heads of periods together. This is writing a book as he fought a battle.

[On Elizabeth Barrett Browning:] Her sweetness of character is even beyond her genius.

In our present high state of civilization, people are so much alike, that anything at all odd comes on one with the freshness and character of an antique coin among smooth shillings.

I place flowers in the very first rank of simple pleasures; and I have no very good opinion of the hard worldly people who take no delight in them.

The power of admiring whatever is deserving of admiration, the nice and quick perception of the beautiful and the true, is one of the highest and noblest of our faculties, born of taste, and knowledge, and wisdom, or rather it is taste, and wisdom, and knowledge, in one rare and great combination.