Top 87 Quotes & Sayings by Margaret Deland

Explore popular quotes and sayings by an American novelist Margaret Deland.

Last updated on November 21, 2024.

Margaret Deland was an American novelist, short story writer, and poet. She also wrote an autobiography in two volumes. She is generally considered part of the literary realism movement.

American - Novelist | February 23, 1857 - January 13, 1945

Source: Wikipedia

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

Margaret Deland

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.

Margaret Deland

there are few things that are more endearing than the grace of listening with attention; indeed, it is more than endearing, it is impressive - for no one knows what wisdom lies concealed in silence!

Margaret Deland

we middle-aged folk have the education of life, truly; we know the multiplication table of anxieties and sorrows, the subtraction table of loss, the division table of responsibility.

Margaret Deland

You can't have genius without patience.

Margaret Deland

Habit does much to reconcile us to unpleasantness.

Margaret Deland

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

Margaret Deland

One must desire something to be alive.

Margaret Deland

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.

Margaret Deland

Age, per se, may claim tenderness and pity, but not respect; that only comes when the years have brought humanity and wisdom and the experience that worketh hope.

Margaret Deland

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

Margaret Deland

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

Margaret Deland

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

Margaret Deland

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

Margaret Deland

When did Youth ever thank Age for its wisdom?

Margaret Deland

One must desire something to be alive; perhaps absolute satisfaction is only another name for Death.

Margaret Deland

a great moment raises most of the people who experience it, to its own level; and that is why they do not always recognize its greatness - or their own.

Margaret Deland

... is there anything more unjust than to build gold and brass and iron on poor, well-meaning clay, -- and then blame the clay when the whole image falls into dust?

Margaret Deland

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

Margaret Deland

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

Margaret Deland

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

Margaret Deland

... safety that depends on an apron-string is very unsafe!

Margaret Deland

Twenty-five years ago, Christmas was not the burden that it is now; there was less haggling and weighing, less quid pro quo, less fatigue of body, less weariness of soul; and, most of all, there was less loading up with trash.

Margaret Deland

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

Margaret Deland

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

Margaret Deland

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

Margaret Deland

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

Margaret Deland

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!

Margaret Deland

Weakness is a great bully without knowing it.

Margaret Deland

... there must be reserves -- except with God. The human soul is solitary. But for confession that is different; justice and reparation sometimes demand it; but, again, justice and courage sometimes forbid it.

Margaret Deland

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

Margaret Deland

Anger as well as love casts out fear.

Margaret Deland

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

Margaret Deland

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

Margaret Deland

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

Margaret Deland

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

Margaret Deland

Real divorce takes place without a decree.

Margaret Deland

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

Margaret Deland

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.

Margaret Deland

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

Margaret Deland

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

Margaret Deland

Age, with shamefaced relief, has learned the solvent quality of Time. It is this quality which makes possible the contemplation of certain embarrassing heavenly reunions.

Margaret Deland

... 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.

Margaret Deland

Nobody who is somebody looks down on anybody.

Margaret Deland

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

Margaret Deland

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

Margaret Deland

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

Margaret Deland

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

Margaret Deland

... when personal happiness conflicts with any great human ideal, the right to claim such happiness is as nothing compared to the privilege of resigning it.

Margaret Deland

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

Margaret Deland

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.

Margaret Deland

Every new truth begins in a shocking heresy.

Margaret Deland

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

Margaret Deland

There is a bond, it appears, between mother and child which endures as long as they do. It is independent of love; reason cannot weaken it; hate cannot destroy it.

Margaret Deland

Absurdity is the one thing love can't stand; it can overlook anything else, -- coldness, or weakness, or viciousness, -- but just be ridiculous and that's the end of it!

Margaret Deland

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

Margaret Deland

Nothing may be more selfish than remorse.

Margaret Deland

... 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.

Margaret Deland

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!

Margaret Deland

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.

Margaret Deland