Joseph Jacobs Quotes & Sayings

Soils and national characters differ, but fairy tales are the same in plot and incidents, if not in treatment. — Joseph Jacobs

Up to 1870, it was equally said of France and of Italy that they possessed no folk-tales. Yet, within fifteen years from that date, over 1000 tales had been collected in each country. — Joseph Jacobs

In 1893, Miss M. Roalfe Cox brought together, in a volume of the Folk-Lore Society, no less than 345 variants of 'Cinderella' and kindred stories showing how widespread this particular formula was throughout Europe and how substantially identical the various incidents as reproduced in each particular country. — Joseph Jacobs

The first two crusades brought the flower of European chivalry to Constantinople and restored that spiritual union between Eastern and Western Christendom that had been interrupted by the great schism of the Greek and Roman Churches. — Joseph Jacobs

Then the ogre fell down and broke his crown, and the beanstalk came toppling after. — Joseph Jacobs

The words 'fairy tales' must accordingly be taken to include tales in which occurs something 'fairy,' something extraordinary - fairies, giants, dwarfs, speaking animals. — Joseph Jacobs

The successful men of action are not sufficiently self-observant to know exactly on what their success depends. — Joseph Jacobs

One might almost say that the history of geographical discovery, properly so called, begins with Captain Cook, the motive of whose voyages was purely scientific curiosity. — Joseph Jacobs

In the Land of Ire, the belief in fairies, gnomes, ogres and monsters is all but dead; in the Land of Ind, it still flourishes in all the vigour of animism. — Joseph Jacobs

Certainly there is abundant evidence of the early transmission by literary means of a considerable number of drolls and folk-tales from India about the time of the Crusaders. — Joseph Jacobs

Then she took the heart and liver of the little girl, and she stewed them and brought them into the house for supper. The husband tasted them and shook his head. He said they tasted very strangely. She gave some to the little boy, but he would not eat. She tried to force him, but he refused, and ran out into the garden, and took up his little sister, and put her in a box, and buried the box under a rose-tree; and every day he went to the tree and wept, till his tears ran down on the box. — Joseph Jacobs

Little pig, little pig, let me come in." To which the pig answered: "No, no, by the hair of my chiny chin chin." The wolf then answered to that: "Then I'll huff, and I'll puff, and I'll blow your house in." So he huffed, and he puffed, and he blew his house in, and ate up the little pig. — Joseph Jacobs

So Molly took the ring to the king, and she was married to his youngest son, and she never saw the giant again. — Joseph Jacobs

Obscure as still remains the origin of that 'genre' of romance to which the tales before us belong, there is little doubt that their models, if not their originals, were once extant at Constantinople. — Joseph Jacobs

Permanent bonds of culture began to be formed between the extreme East and the extreme West of Europe by intermarriage, by commerce, by the admission of the nobles of Byzantium within the orders of chivalry. — Joseph Jacobs

Generally speaking, it has been my ambition to write as a good old nurse will speak when she tells fairy tales. — Joseph Jacobs

Fee, fi, fo, fum, I smell the blood of a Christian man, Be he dead, be he living, with my brand, I'll dash his brains from his brain-pan. — Joseph Jacobs

Forgiveness is the highest and most difficult of all moral lessons. — Joseph Jacobs

so funny. The sun was shining into part of — Joseph Jacobs

The first glimpse that we have of the notions which the Greeks possessed of the shape and the inhabitants of the earth is afforded by the poems passing under the name of Homer. — Joseph Jacobs

Nowhere else is there so large and consistent a body of oral tradition about the national and mythical heroes as amongst the Gaels. — Joseph Jacobs

The great problems of the Twentieth century will have immediate relation to the discoveries of America, of Africa, and of Australia. — Joseph Jacobs

Every place but that in which one is born is equally strange and wondrous. Once beyond the bounds of the city walls, and none knows what may happen. We have stepped forth into the Land of Faerie, but at least we are in the open air. — Joseph Jacobs

Children, and sometimes those of larger growth, will not read dialect. — Joseph Jacobs

The truth is, my folk-lore friends and my Saturday Reviewer differ with me on the important problem of the origin of folk-tales. They think that a tale probably originated where it was found. — Joseph Jacobs

Be bold, be bold, but not too bold,
Lest that your heart's blood should run cold. — Joseph Jacobs

The fate of the Celt in the British Empire bids fair to resemble that of the Greeks among the Romans. — Joseph Jacobs

The Celtic folk-tales have been collected while the practice of story-telling is still in full vigour, though there is every sign that its term of life is already numbered. — Joseph Jacobs

mouth," says Jack, as sharp as a needle. — Joseph Jacobs

Now, what's my name?" says he. "What, is that Bill?" says she. "Noo, that ain't," says he, and he twirled his tail. "Is that Ned?" says she. "Noo, that ain't," says he, and he twirled his tail. "Well, is that Mark?" says she. "Noo, that ain't," says he, and he — Joseph Jacobs

I have come to the conclusion that a goodly number of the fables that pass under the name of the Samian slave, Aesop, were derived from India, probably from the same source whence the same tales were utilised in the Jatakas, or Birth-stories of Buddha. — Joseph Jacobs