Isabella Beeton Quotes & Sayings

What moved me, in the first instance, to attempt a work like this, was the discomfort and suffering which I had seen brought upon men and women by household mismanagement. I have always thought that there is no more fruitful source of family discontent than a housewife's badly-cooked dinners and untidy ways. — Isabella Beeton

It is true, says Liebeg, that thousands have lived without a knowledge of tea and coffee; and daily experience teaches us that, under certain circumstances, they may be dispensed with without disadvantage to the merely animal functions, but it is an error, certainly, to conclude from this that they may be altogether dispensed with in reference to their effects; and It is a question whether, if we had no tea and no coffee, the popular instinct would not seek for and discover the means of replacing them. — Isabella Beeton

Frugality and economy are virtues without which no household can prosper. Whatever the income, waste of all kinds should be most sternly repressed ... Economy and frugality must never, however, be allowed to degenerate into meanness. — Isabella Beeton

Dine we must and we may as well dine elegantly as well as wholesomely. — Isabella Beeton

There should be a place for everything, and everything in its place. — Isabella Beeton

The white Aylesbury duck is, and deservedly, a universal favourite. Its snowy plumage and comfortable comportment make it a credit to the poultry-yard, while its broad and deep breast, and its ample back, convey the assurance that your satisfaction will not cease at its death. — Isabella Beeton

Pay, pay anything rather than go to law. — Isabella Beeton

Spring is the usual period for house-cleaning and removing the dust and dirt which, notwithstanding all precautions, will accumulate during the winter months from dust, smoke, gas, etc. — Isabella Beeton

A good kitchen should be sufficiently remote from the principal apartments of the house, that the members, visitors, or guests of the family, may not perceive the odour incident to cooking, or hear the noise of culinary operations. — Isabella Beeton

Afternoon tea should be provided, fresh supplies, with thin bread-and-butter, fancy pastries, cakes, etc., being brought in as other guests arrive. — Isabella Beeton

It is to be regretted that domestication has seriously deteriorated the moral character of the duck. In a wild state, he is a faithful husband ... but no sooner is he domesticated than he becomes polygamous, and makes nothing of owning ten or a dozen wives at a time. — Isabella Beeton

As in the fine arts, the progress of mankind from barbarism to civilisation is marked by a gradual succession of triumphs over the rude materialities of nature, so in the art of cookery is the progress gradual from the earliest and simplest modes, to those of the most complicated and refined. — Isabella Beeton

The half-hour before dinner has always been considered as the great ordeal through which the mistress, in giving a dinner-party, will either pass with flying colours, or lose many of her laurels. — Isabella Beeton

The kitchen is the great laboratory of the household, and much of the 'weal and woe' as far as regards bodily health, depends on the nature of the preparations concocted within its walls. — Isabella Beeton

Fish is held out to be one of the greatest luxuries of the table and not only necessary, but even indispensable at all dinners where there is any pretence of excellence or fashion. — Isabella Beeton

Dining is the privilege of civilization ... The nation which knows how to dine has learnt the leading lesson of progress. — Isabella Beeton