Beatrix Potter Quotes

There is something delicious about writing the first words of a story. You never quite know where they'll take you.

We cannot stay home all our lives, we must present ourselves to the world and we must look upon it as an adventure.

What heaven can be more real than to retain the spirit-world of childhood?

All outward forms of religion are almost useless, and are the causes of endless strife. Believe there is a great power silently working all things for good, behave yourself and never mind the rest.

Thank goodness I was never sent to school; it would have rubbed off some of the originality.

Once upon a time there were four little Rabbits, and their names were--Flopsy, Mopsy, Cottontail, and Peter.

With opportunity the world is very interesting.

For quiet, solitary and observant children create their own world and live in it, nourishing their imaginations on the material at hand.

What we call the highest and the lowest in nature are both equally perfect. A willow bush is as beautiful as the human form divine.

I do so hate finishing books. I would like to go on with them for years.

I cannot rest, I must draw, however poor the result, and when I have a bad time come over me it is a stronger desire than ever.

I have just made stories to please myself, because I never grew up.

I hold that a strongly marked personality can influence descendants for generations.

I hold an old-fashioned notion that a happy marriage is the crown of a woman’s life.

Peter lost one of his shoes among the cabbages, and the other shoe amongst the potatoes.

Most people, after one success, are so cringingly afraid of doing less well that they rub all the edge off their subsequent work.

Don't go into Mr. McGregor's garden: your Father had an accident there; he was put in a pie by Mrs. McGregor.

It is said that the effect of eating too much lettuce is 'soporific'.

In the time of swords and periwigs and full-skirted coats with flowered lappets - when gentlemen wore ruffles, and gold-laced waistcoats of paduasoy and taffeta - there lived a tailor in Gloucester.

The shorter and the plainer the better.

Here comes Peter Cottontail right down the bunny trail.

This is a fierce bad rabbit; look at his savage whiskers, and his claws and his turned-up tail.

I think if she lived in A little shoe-house That little old woman was Surely a mouse!

Thank goodness my education was neglected.

It sometimes happens that the town child is more alive to the fresh beauty of the country than a child who is country born

Peter was not very well during the evening. His mother put him to bed, and made some chamomile tea: "One table-spoonful to be taken at bedtime.

I am worn to a raveling.

I think prejudice and tradition count for three-quarters in matters of religion.

I fear that we shall be obliged to leave this pudding

Believe there is a great power silently working all things for good, behave yourself and never mind the rest.

Thank goodness I was never sent to school it would have rubbed off some of the originality.

If I have done anything, even a little, to help small children enjoy honest, simple pleasures, I have done a bit of good.

Believe there is a great power silently working all things for good behave yourself and never mind the rest.