Mary Russell Mitford Quotes

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

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.

I foresee that the Andersen and Fairy Tale fashion will not last; none of these things away from general nature do.

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

Friendship is the bread of the heart.

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.

Nothing so pretty to look at as my garden!

She was the prettiest, silliest, most affected, husband-hunting butterfly ever.

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

A novel should be as like life as a painting, but not as like life as a piece of waxwork.

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.

My patience has dreadful chilblains from standing so long on a monument.

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

I detest so much ... those persons, who insist upon telling you everything - who labor every point, as the lawyers say, as if they thought all excellence consisted in length.

I do not think very highly of Madame D'Arblay's books. The style is so strutting. She does so stalk about on Dr. Johnson's old stilts.

I prepare myself for all disappointments by expecting nothing.

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

[On Elizabeth Barrett Browning:] ... for finish, and melody of versification, there is nothing approaching to Miss Barrett in this day, or in any other - also for diction. Her words paint.

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

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

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

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.

... they know little of the passions who seek to argue with that most intractable of them all, the fear that is born of love.

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

Fashion is a capricious deity.

Enthusiasm is very catching, especially when it is very eloquent.

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