“Don’t shut yourself up in a band box because you are a woman, but understand what is going on, and educate yourself to take part in the world’s work, for it all affects you and yours.”

Some people seemed to get all sunshine, and some all shadow.

Where the heart is the mind works best.

In the books I read the sinners are always more interesting than the saints, and in real life good people are dismally dull. I’ve no desire to be wicked, but I do want to be happy. A short life and a gay one for me and I’m willing to pay for my pleasure if it is necessary.

I’d rather take coffee than compliments now.

Honesty is the best policy, in love as in law.

Love is a great beautifier.

Wild roses are fairest, and nature a better gardener than art.

There is very little real liberty in the world; even those who seem freest are often the most tightly bound. Law, custom, public opinion, fear or shame make slaves of us all, as you will find when you try your experiment.

Some books are so familiar that reading them is like being home again.

Marriage, they say, halves one’s rights and doubles one’s duties.

My book came out; and people began to think that topsy-turvy Louisa would amount to something after all.

Nothing is impossible to a determined woman.

It takes so little to make a child happy, that it is a pity in a world full of sunshine and pleasant things, that there should be any wistful faces, empty hands, or lonely little hearts.

Be comforted, dear soul! There is always light behind the clouds.

It takes very little fire to make a great deal of smoke nowadays, and notoriety is not real glory.

Don’t try to make me grow up before my time.

People too often forget that we get to choose how something affects us.

Whatever makes an impression on the heart seems lovely in the eye.

You can’t comfort the afflicted with afflicting the comfortable.

The relationship you have with yourself affects all the others.

Indifferentism is the worst kind of disease that can affect people.

A lie believed as truth will affect your life as if it were true.

He clings to his solitude, to his affected indifference and his grown-up ways, but it’s just an act, so as never, never to show his real feelings.

What you measure affects what you do. If you don’t measure the right thing, you don’t do the right thing.