Barbauld Quotes & Sayings

The dead of midnight is the noon of thought. — Anna Letitia Barbauld

Nobody ought to be too old to improve: I should be sorry if I was; and I flatter myself I have already improved considerably by my travels. First, I can swallow gruel soup, egg soup, and all manner of soups, without making faces much. Secondly, I can pretty well live without tea ... — Anna Letitia Barbauld

You speak of beginning the education of your son. The moment he was able to form an idea his education was already begun ... — Anna Letitia Barbauld

But every act in consequence of our faith, strengthens faith. — Anna Letitia Barbauld

So fades a summer cloud away; So sinks the gale when storms are o'er; So gently shuts the eye of day; So dies a wave along the shore. — Anna Letitia Barbauld

When one by one our ties are torn, and friend from friend is snatched forlorn; when man is left alone to mourn, oh! then how sweet it is to die! — Anna Letitia Barbauld

Say not 'Good-night' but in some brighter clime, bid me 'Good-morning.' — Anna Letitia Barbauld

Society than solitude is worse, And man to man is still the greatest curse. — Anna Letitia Barbauld

Of her scorn the maid repented, And the shepherd - of his love. — Anna Letitia Barbauld

The awakenings of remorse, virtuous shame and indignation, the glow of moral approbation if they do not lead to action, grow less and less vivid every time they occur, till at length the mind grows absolutely callous. — Anna Letitia Barbauld

Is there not
A tongue in every star that talks with man,
And wooes him to be wise? nor wooes in vain;
This dead of midnight is the noon of thought,
And wisdom mounts her zenith with the stars. — Anna Laetitia Barbauld

Fair Venus shines Even in the eve of day, with sweetest beam Propitious shines, and shakes a trembling flood Of softened radiance from her dewy locks. — Anna Letitia Barbauld

It is to hope, though hope were lost. — Anna Letitia Barbauld

We neither laugh alone, nor weep alone, why then should we pray alone? — Anna Letitia Barbauld

If an author would have us feel a strong degree of compassion, his characters must not be too perfect. — Anna Letitia Barbauld

We should contract our ideas of education, and expect no more from it than it is able to perform. — Anna Letitia Barbauld

We can only love what we know. — Anna Letitia Barbauld

It is, in truth, the most absurd of all suppositions, that a human being can be educated, or even nourished and brought up, without imbibing numberless prejudices from every thing which passes around him. — Anna Letitia Barbauld

There is a land, where the roses are without thorns, where the flowers are not mixed with brambles. In that land, there is eternal spring, and light without any cloud. The tree of life groweth in the midst thereof; rivers of pleasures are there, and flowers that never fade. Myriads of happy spirits are there, and surround the throne of God with a perpetual hymn. The angels with their golden harps sing praises continually, and the cherubim fly on wings of fire! This country is Heaven ... — Anna Letitia Barbauld

Child of mortality, whence comest thou? Why is thy countenance sad, and why are thine eyes red with weeping? — Anna Letitia Barbauld

Man is the nobler growth our realms supply, And souls are ripened in our northern sky. — Anna Letitia Barbauld

Let China's earth, enrich'd with colour'd stains,
Pencil'd with gold, and streak'd with azure veins,
The grateful flavour of the Indian leaf,
Or Mocho's sunburnt berry glad receive.'
MRS. BARBAULD. — Elizabeth Gaskell

It would be difficult to determine whether the age is growing better or worse; for I think our plays are growing like sermons, and our sermons like plays. — Anna Letitia Barbauld

Eternity.-Thy name Or glad, or fearful, we pronounce, as thoughts Wandering in darkness shape thee. Thou strange being, Which art and must be, yet which contradict'st All sense, all reasoning,-thou, who never wast Less than thyself, and who still art thyself Entire, though the deep draught which Time has taken Equals thy present store-No line can reach To thy unfathomed depths. The reasoning sage Who can dissect a sunbeam, count the stars, And measure distant worlds, is here a child, And, humbled, drops his calculating pen. — Anna Letitia Barbauld

Happy is he to whom, in the maturer season of life, there remains one tried and constant friend ... — Anna Letitia Barbauld

Forgotten rimes, and college themes, Worm-eaten plans, and embryo schemes; A mass of heterogeneous matter. A chaos dark, nor land nor water. — Anna Letitia Barbauld

We may think all religions beneficial, and believe of one alone that it is true. — Anna Letitia Barbauld

Young gentlemen, who are to display their knowledge to the world, should have every motive of emulation, should be formed into regular classes, should read and dispute together, should have all the honors, and, if one may say so, the pomp of learning set before them, to call up their ardor. It is their business, and they should apply to it as such. — Anna Letitia Barbauld

Children have almost an intuitive discernment between the maxims you bring forward for their use, and those by which you direct your own conduct. — Anna Letitia Barbauld

And when midst fallen London, they survey The stone where Alexander's ashes lay, Shall own with humbled pride the lesson must By Time's slow finger written in the dust. — Anna Letitia Barbauld

The well taught philosophic mind To all compassion gives; Casts round the world an equal eye, And feels for all that lives. — Anna Letitia Barbauld

Many things I knew, I have forgotten; many things I thought I knew, I find I know nothing about; some things I know, I have found not worth knowing; and some things I would give - O what would one not give to know? are beyond the reach of human ken. — Anna Letitia Barbauld

The world has little to bestow Where two fond hearts in equal love are joined. — Anna Letitia Barbauld

Let us confess a truth, humiliating to human pride; - a very small part only of the opinions of the coolest philosopher are the result of fair reasoning; the rest are formed by his education, his temperament, by the age in which he lives, by trains of thought directed to a particular track through some accidental association - in short, by prejudice. — Anna Letitia Barbauld

Englishmen are said to love their laws; - that is the reason, I suppose, they give us so many of them, and in different editions. — Anna Letitia Barbauld

You, that have toiled during youth, to set your son upon higher ground, and to enable him to begin where you left off, do not expect that son to be what you were, - diligent, modest, active, simple in his tastes, fertile in resources. You have put him under quite a different master. Poverty educated you; wealth will educate him. You cannot suppose the result will be the same. — Anna Letitia Barbauld

The first pale blossom of the unripened year. — Anna Letitia Barbauld

The best way for women to acquire knowledge is from conversation with a father, a brother, or a friend, in the way of family intercourse and easy conversation, and by such a course of reading as they may recommend. — Anna Letitia Barbauld

Furthermore, even these limited accomplishments should be obtained, Barbauld cautioned, "in a quiet and unobserved manner" for the display of knowledge by a woman is "punished with disgrace."6 Besides, the Monthly Review complained in a 1763 review, "intense thought spoils a lady's features."7 — Karen Swallow Prior

Time deals gently with me; and though I feel that I descend, the slope is easy ... — Anna Letitia Barbauld

The most characteristic mark of a great mind is to choose some one important object, and pursue it for life. — Anna Letitia Barbauld

While Genius was thus wasting his strength in eccentric flights, I saw a person of a very different appearance, named Application. — Anna Letitia Barbauld