Best 62 quotes of Phyllis Bottome on MyQuotes

A desire that has never been fulfilled is considerably less acute than one that has been fulfilled and then checked at the source.

all daughters, even when most aggravated by their mothers, have a secret respect for them. They believe perhaps that they can do everything better than their mothers can, and many things they can do better, but they have not yet lived long enough to be sure how successfully they will meet the major emergencies of life, which lie, sometimes quite creditably, behind their mothers.

All persecution is a sign of fear; for if we did not fear the power of an opinion different from our own, we should not mind others holding it.

A man whose every exertion is bent upon showing up the flaws in his wife's character must be at least partially responsible for some of them.

Anger is like mild, it should not be kept too long.

A red-hot belief in eternal glory is probably the best antidote to human panic that there is.

A refugee is as helpless as a new born child - but not so appealing! Besides, a new born child has no memories!

artists are exposed to great temptations: their eyes see paradise before their souls have reached it, and that is a great danger.

Curiosity is the only thing that really carries through time, isn't it? The creative curiosity, I mean, which fights its way into expression?

Curses are children of hate; they belong to the wrong family! Prayers are better than curses!

Death deceives relations often, and doctors sometimes, but the patient - never.

death ... is not a great affair! Think - it happens once only - to each of us - as birth does. What do you know about being born? that - and no more - will you know about the act of death.

Every hen thinks she has laid the best egg! Can we not all believe as we choose? But the choice of others - what is that to us? Let them alone.

Feelings change facts.

hurt vanity is one of the cruelest of mortal wounds.

Human beings don't show, any more than cities at dusk, their real necessities! And yet if you looked -- past the circle of outside lights, through the street walls still standing -- into the want and emptiness within!

If money had been the way to save the world, Christ himself would have been rich.

If one has one cow, it is always better not to be too familiar with those who have seven.

if you listen long enough - or is it deep enough? - the silence of a lover can speak plainer than any words! Only you must know how to listen. Pain must have taught you how.

In my early life, and probably even today, it is not sufficiently understood that a child's education should include at least a rudimentary grasp of religion, sex, and money. Without a basic knowledge of these three primary facts in a normal human being's life --subjects which stir the emotions, create events and opportunities, and if they do not wholly decide must greatly influence an individual's personality --no human being's education can have a safe foundation.

it is better in the long run to be cheated than to cheat. I have learned that there is no middle way.

It is a very dangerous thing to have an idea that you will not practice.

it is the possibilities which are the most terrible things in life.

It is you men who make war! ... We, who have children, would never make it! Why should a woman be broken up in pain, to give her child life, only to see him carried away from her, to make food for guns?

it must depend as much upon the patient's willingness to be cured, as upon the physician's skill in curing. There is neither force not magic in psychiatry.

It's a good thing to learn early that other people's opinions do not matter, unless they happen to be true.

I wonder how often not the intention but the desire springs up in a doctor's mind: 'Can I let this human being out of the trap of Life?

Jane had that happy disposition which would like to imagine that every one really wishes the well-being of his neighbour and struggles, though sometimes rather disastrously, to help him towards it.

Knowledge cannot be changed, but the use to which it may be put can very easily be changed.

Love comes into your being like a tidal wave ... sometimes it withdraws like a wave, till there isn't such a thing as a pool left, and every bit of your heart is as dry as seaweed beyond the wave's reach.

Luck enters into every contingency. You are a fool if you forget it -- and a greater fool if you count upon it.

Morale is not a single instinct. It has many ingredients. A sense of personal responsibility, the natural courage of an individual, the amount of his acquired self-discipline -- and above all his interest in others -- these together make up the spirit of morale.

... most people are dead, and none of them seem to mind it. One hears a great many complaints about life, doesn't one? And there are people I know who would certainly grumble -- however dead they were -- if there were anything to grumble at.

Neither saints nor angels have ever increased my faith in this enigma Life; but what are called 'common men and women' have increased it.

No emergency excuses you from exercising tolerance.

... not being liked has a certain virtue about it, if the reason for the dislike does not lie in yourself!

... one pets what one degrades; and one has to support what one has enfeebled

People who talk of new lives believe there will be no new troubles.

She believed in letting children have a certain amount of rope, and only intervened at the last moment, in order to prevent their hanging themselves by it.

Some of us cling to our curses if we haven't anything better to cling to!

Taboos on the human heart are more dangerous than any risk we run by using our emotions. Sensation is the life of man; it is his actual energy. To suppress it is to lose creative power!

That a Jew is despised or persecuted is bad for him, of course-but far worse for the Christian who does it-for although persecuted he can remain a good Jew-whereas no Christian who persecutes can possibly remain-if he ever was one-a good Christian.

The only creative power I know is that of what might roughly be called 'love'; not of course a sentimental love: a far more impersonal and less individual emotion. I sometimes think that migratory birds may have it for each other. They fly in the same direction, and have never been seen to interfere with each other's flights.

There are two ways of meeting difficulties: you alter the difficulties, or you alter yourself to meet them.

There is no thermometer for wants!

There's nothing final about a mistake, except its being taken as final.

The two best subjects for conversation are talking shop and making love.

Things that happen, however painful they are at the time, do not matter very much for long. Only how we behave to them matters.

This is the real tragedy of mankind, that until now the spirit of man has not been able to free itself, even along the path of its own development, from the tentacles of self-deception.

Time indeed has very little to do with living except at its beginning or near its end.