Quotes

[on accomplishment] Every man who is high up loves to think he has done it all himself; and his wife smiles, and lets it go at that.

Those who bring sunshine to the lives of others cannot keep it from themselves.

Stars are beautiful, but they must not take an active part in anything, they must just look on forever. It is a punishment put on them for something they did so long ago that no star now knows what it was.

The secret of happiness is not in doing what one likes, but in liking what one does.

On charm: it's a sort of bloom on a woman. If you have it, you don't need to have anything else; and if you don't have it, it doesn't much matter what else you have. Some women, the few, have charm for all; and most have charm for one. But some have charm for none

"They didna speak, but they just gave one another a look, and I saw the love-light in their een." No more is remembered of these two, no being now living ever saw them, but the poetry that was in the soul of a battered weaver makes them human to us for ever

One's religion is whatever he is most interested in.

The life of every man is a diary in which he means to write one story, and writes another; and his humblest hour is when he compares the volume as it is with what he vowed to make it.

So was man created: to hunger for the ideal that is above himself, until one day there is magic in the air, and the eyes of a girl rest upon him. He does not know that it is he himself who crowned her, and if the girl is as pure as he, their love is the one form of idolatry that is not quite ignoble. It is the joining of two souls on their way to God.

When you are older you will know that life is a long lesson in humility.

Shall we make a new rule of life from tonight: always to try to be a little kinder than is necessary?

You were the daughter of a summer night, born where all the birds are free, and the moon christened you with her soft light to dazzle the eyes of man.

We never understand how little we need in this world until we know the loss of it.

Let no one who loves be called altogether unhappy. Even love unreturned has its rainbow. This is not a love that is always bitter, it grows sweet with age.

Do you know why swallows build in the eaves of houses? It is to listen to the stories.

It is frightfully difficult to know much about the fairies, and almost the only thing known for certain is that there are fairies wherever there are children.

Wise children always choose a mother who was a shocking flirt in her maiden days, and so had several offers before she accepted their fortunate papa.

Every Spring Cleaning, except when he forgets, I'll let Jane fly away with him to the darling Never Never Land, and when she grows up I will hope she will have a little daughter, who will fly away with him in turn - and in this way may it go on for ever and ever, so long as children are young and innocent.

The moment you doubt whether you can fly, you cease forever to be able to do it. The reason birds can fly and we can't is simply that they have perfect faith, for to have faith is to have wings.

All this has happened before, and it will all happen again.

When the first baby laughed for the first time, its laugh broke into a thousand pieces, and they all went skipping about, and that was the beginning of fairies.

When a new baby laughs for the first time a new fairy is born, and as there are always new babies there are always new fairies. They live in nests on the tops of trees; and the mauve ones are boys and the white ones are girls, and the blue ones are just little sillies who are not sure what they are.

All children, except one, grow up.

It is only the gay and innocent and heartless who can fly.