Dorothy Whipple Quotes & Sayings

But Mrs. Brockington, old, alone, almost crippled by rheumatism, had faith and courage. She had more. She had a warm serenity, and when Ellen was with her, she almost had it too. For goodness is catching. Mrs. Brockington was further on the road Ellen wanted to travel, and because Mrs. Brockington had got there, Ellen felt she might get there too. — Dorothy Whipple

In the radiance and the silence, she ran on the vast expanse of hard, smooth sand, beside herself with joy. Ah, when you only have a holiday once in a while, what a happiness it is! Each golden minute had to be held and perfected before it was let go. — Dorothy Whipple

It matters to ourselves, of course, but it matters terribly to other people. Moral failure or spiritual failure or whatever you call it, makes such a vicious circle ... It seems as if when we love people and they fall short, we retaliate by falling shorter ourselves. Children are like that. Adults have a fearful responsibility. When they fail to live up to what children expect of them, the children give up themselves. So each generation keeps failing the next. — Dorothy Whipple

A loved husband is the companion of companions, the supreme sharer, and a happy wife often sounds trivial when she is really sampling and enjoying their mutual and unique confidence. But in doing it, she largely loses her power of independent decision and action. She either brings her husband round to her way of thinking or goes over to his, and mostly she doesn't know or care which it is. — Dorothy Whipple

She had learnt to wait for the changes and the help that life brings. Life is like the sea, sometimes you are in the trough of the wave, sometimes on the crest. When you are in the trough, you wait for the crest, and always, trough or crest, a mysterious tide bears you forward to an unseen, but certain shore. In — Dorothy Whipple

All those books, all those prayers and she had got nothing from them. When everything went well for her she had been able to pray, she couldn't now. There was such urgency in her present situation that until the pressure was removed she couldn't think about God. She hadn't the patience to pray. It was a shock to her. Surely God was for these times? — Dorothy Whipple

If we could be seen thinking, we would show blown bright one moment, dark the next, like embers; subject to every passing word and thought of our own or other people's, mostly other people's. — Dorothy Whipple

With love, you don't even need butter on your bread; without it, an elaborate feast is necessary to make you come to the table. — Dorothy Whipple

Marriage or no marriage, children or no children, life - the real life - is lived in the spirit, and I hold that the right education helps the spirit to maintain its own life, makes it independent of material prosperity or adversity. That is the ideal we strive for. To enrich the spirit, to enrich the personality. — Dorothy Whipple