Best 76 quotes of Margaret Deland on MyQuotes

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!

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.

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.

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.

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

a manufactured interest has no staying quality - especially if it involves any hard work.

Anger as well as love casts out fear.

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

a short cut to matrimonial unhappiness is not to have the same taste in jokes!

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

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.

A sneer is like a flame; it may occasionally be curative because it cauterizes, but it leaves a bitter scar.

Books are like sapphires; they must be polished - polished! or else you insult your readers.

By some mysterious method, Susan Carr's gossip gave the listener a gentler feeling towards his kind. When she spoke of her neighbors' faults, one knew that somehow they were simply virtues gone to seed.

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

Conscience that isn't hitched up to common sense is a mighty dangerous thing.

Every new truth begins in a shocking heresy.

faith, it seems to me, is not the holding of certain dogmas; it is simply openness and readiness of heart to believe any truth which God may show.

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

gossip, after it reaches a certain point of insult and falsehood, becomes a source of amusement to its victims.

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

Grief is the price Love pays for being in the same world with Death.

Habit does much to reconcile us to unpleasantness.

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

Home is the best place to be sick in.

... 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.

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

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.

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

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

... in a wicked way, it is an incentive to good living to observe the spice of enjoyment there is to a godly soul in a very little sin.

In connection with death, or birth, or love, modesty is only a rather puerile self-consciousness.

I notice that when people have no sense of responsibility, you call them either criminals or geniuses.

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!

... 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?

... 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.

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

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

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

Lawyers make their cake by cooking up other people's troubles.

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

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

moral vanity is the snare of good people.

Nobody who is somebody looks down on anybody.

nothing is as conventional as adolescence.

Nothing may be more selfish than remorse.

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

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

Real divorce takes place without a decree.

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