“For quiet, solitary and observant children create their own world and live in it, nourishing their imaginations on the material at hand.”

One day puss did not take his place punctually, but presently appeared with two mice, one of which it placed on its master’s plate, the other on its own.

Peter lost one of his shoes among the cabbages, and the other shoe amongst the potatoes.

I have just made stories to please myself, because I never grew up.

The place is changed now, and many familiar faces are gone, but the greatest change is myself.

Believe there is a great power silently working all things for good, behave yourself and never mind the rest.

So much perfection argues rottenness somewhere.

I hold that a strongly marked personality can influence descendants for generations.

Thank goodness my education was neglected.

What heaven can be more real than to retain the spirit-world of childhood?

I am worn to a raveling.

Thank goodness I was never sent to school; it would have rubbed off some of the originality.

It is said that the effect of eating too much lettuce is ‘soporific’.

I fear that we shall be obliged to leave this pudding

When gentlemen wore ruffles, and gold-laced waistcoats of paduasoy and taffeta – there lived a tailor in Gloucester.

A gentleman had a favourite cat whom he taught to sit at the dinner table where it behaved very well. He was in the habit of putting any scraps he left onto the cat’s plate.

I do so hate finishing books. I would like to go on with them for years.

Whatever has “wit enough to keep it sweet” defies corruption and outlasts all time; but the wit must be of that outward and visible order which needs no introduction or demonstration at our hands.

Hands are the tool of the painter, the artist.

The necessity of knowing a little about a great many things is the most grievous burden of our day. It deprives us of leisure on the one hand, and of scholarship on the other.

Struggle is the meaning of life; defeat or victory is in the hands of God. But struggle itself is man’s duty and should be his joy.

No man pursues what he has at hand. No man recognizes the need of pursuit until that which he desires has escaped him.

The way to get things out of a government is to back them to the wall, put your hands to their throats, and you will get all they have.

We are tethered to our kind, and may as well join hands in the struggle.

I believe the preservation of the home in the future lies almost entirely in the hands of men.