“I don’t like favors; they oppress and make me fell like a slave. I’d rather do everything for myself, and be perfectly independent.”

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.

Father asked us what was God’s noblest work. Anna said men, but I said babies. Men are often bad, but babies never are.

Happy is the son whose faith in his mother remains unchallenged.

I’ve got the key to my castle in the air, but whether I can unlock the door remains to be seen.

Every house needs a grandmother in it.

Women have been called queens for a long time, but the kingdom given them isn’t worth ruling.

The scar will remain, but it is better for a man to lose both arms than his soul; and these hard years, instead of being lost, may be made the most precious of your lives, if they teach you to rule yourselves.

Stumbling is not falling.

Violence does, in truth, recoil upon the violent, and the schemer falls into the pit which he digs for another.

Whoever falls, hatred will breed hatred.

Everything that comes together falls apart.

Love had surely made us all and hate would surely make us fall.

It is the nature of mortals to kick a fallen man.

Relationships are like Rome – difficult to start out, incredible during the prosperity of the ‘golden age’, and unbearable during the fall.

We fall in love with someone when they show us, consistently, that they’re willing to put our needs ahead of their own.