Handmaid's Quotes & Sayings

Music had always been the handmaid of the Roman liturgy. — Richard Morris

Thy wife, not handmaid I, yet thou dost say, 'I first in Eden rule.' Thou, then, hast sway. Must I, my Adam, mutely follow thee? Run at thy bidding, crouch beside thy knee? Lift up (when thou dost bid me) timid eyes? Not so will Lilith dwell in Paradise. — Ada Langworthy Collier

Patience is the fair handmaid and daughter of faith; we cheerfully wait when we are certain that we shall not wait in vain. It is our duty and our privilege to wait upon the Lord in service, in worship, in expectancy, in trust all the days of our life. Our faith will be tried faith, and if it be of the true kind, it will bear continued trial without yielding. — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

The tulips along the border are redder than ever, opening, no longer wine cups but chalices; thrusting themselves up, to what end? They are, after all, empty. When they are old they turn themselves inside out, explode slowly, the petals thrown like shards. — Margaret Atwood

I was nervous. How was I to know he loved me? It might be just an affair. Why did we ever say just? Though at that time men and women tried each other on, casually, like suits, rejecting whatever did not fit. — Margaret Atwood

I find the entrance to the women's washroom ... There's a rest area, gently lit in pinkish tones, with several easy chairs and a sofa, in a lime-green bamboo-shoot print, with a wall clock above it in a gold filigree frame. Here they haven't removed the mirror, there's a long one opposite the sofa. You need to know, here, what you look like. — Margaret Atwood

It is thought which governs the world, and all the states in it, and produces whatever is great and glorious in them. Stirring and action is but the handmaid of thought, without which the former can do no good, but may a great deal of harm.

- George Berkeley (The Correspondence of George Berkeley p. 47) — Marc A. Hight

Mary was able to turn a stable into a home for Jesus, with poor swaddling clothes and an abundance of love. She is the handmaid of the Father who sings his praises. She is the friend who is ever concerned that wine not be lacking in our lives. She is the woman whose heart was pierced by a sword and who understands all our pain. — Pope Francis

The thing to remember is that there is nothing new about the society depicted in The Handmaid's Tale except the time and place. All of the things I have written about have been done before, more than once. — Margaret Atwood

The past has always been the handmaid of authority. — J. H. Plumb

after all had eaten, then Geraint, For now the wine made summer in his veins, Let his eye rove in following, or rest On Enid at her lowly handmaid-work, — Alfred Tennyson

Elegancy, is a good Meen and Address given to Matter, be it by proper or figurative Speech: Where the Words are apt, and allusions very natural, Certainly it has a moving Grace: But it is too artificial for Simplicity, and oftentimes for Truth. The Danger is, lest it delude the Weak, who in such Cases may mistake the Handmaid for the Mistress, if not Error for Truth. — Various

Poverty is never dishonourable in itself, but only when it is a mark of sloth, intemperance, extravagance, or thoughtlessness. When, on the other hand, it is the handmaid of a sober, industrious, righteous, and brave man, who devotes all his powers to the service of the people, it is the sign of a lofty spirit that harbours no mean thoughts — Plutarch

My English teachers gave me a copy of Atwood's 'The Handmaid's Tale' when I left high school, which has always been very special to me - it was the novel that introduced me to dystopian fiction. I'm also influenced by Edgar Allan Poe, Dickens, John Wyndham and Middle English dream-visions. — Samantha Shannon

Good luck is the willing handmaid of a upright and energetic character, and conscientious observance of duty. — James Russell Lowell

The scene unfolded before him as though he were a ghost.
His mother stood on the raised stump, her body tied to the tall stake behind her. A pile of wood encircled her feet. Only a small crowd had gathered in the courtyard, despite his father's commands that all should attend. Alasdair sobbed at her feet, calling out to her. The young Alasdair climbed on the pile and clutched her flowing gown. She had been dressed in her finest, not stripped down to her chemise like the handmaid who stood tied to a post beside her. His father had always liked a display. Alasdair's hands reached and passed over his mother's large pregnant belly. With that, she sobbed, too. "Oh, Ali, be good for Momma. I'll see you in the pearly white heaven that God has promised us. Be steadfast, son. Trust your heart."
"Light it," his father ordered. — Jean M. Grant

I want to be held and told my name. I want to be valued, in ways that I am not; I want to be more than valuable. I repeat my former name; remind myself of what I once could do, how others saw me. I want to steal something. — Margaret Atwood

You are a very special child," the old handmaid said, stroking Eleonora's hair. "You know that don't you?"
Eleonora mumbled a yes.
"You know you are special, but I think that you aren't sure how."
She nodded. That was, indeed, the crux of it. — Michael David Lukas

The Cinderella of the church today is the prayer meeting. This handmaid of the Lord is unloved and unwooed because she is not dripping with the pearls of intellectualism, nor glamorous with the silks of philosophy; neither is she enchanting with the tiara of psychology. She wears the homespuns of sincerity and humility and so is not afraid to kneel! — Leonard Ravenhill

Let flattery, the handmaid of the vices, be far removed . — Marcus Tullius Cicero

O Lord, I am Thy servant; I am Thy servant, and the son of Thy handmaid: Thou hast broken my bonds in sunder. I will offer to Thee the sacrifice of Let my heart and my tongue praise Thee; yea, let all my bones say, O Lord, who is like unto Thee? Let them say, and answer Thou me, and say unto my soul, I am thy salvation. Who am I, and what am I? What evil have not been either my deeds, or if not my deeds, my words, or if not my words, my will? But Thou, O Lord, are good and merciful, and Thy right hand had respect unto the depth of my death, and from the bottom of my heart emptied that abyss of corruption. And this Thy whole gift was, to nill what I willed, and to will what Thou willedst. — Augustine Of Hippo

All good moral philosophy is ... but the handmaid to religion. — Francis Bacon

I look upon Phrenology as the guide to philosophy and the handmaid of Christianity. Whoever disseminates true Phrenology is a public benefactor. — Horace Mann

Hunter and hunted. There are so many ways in which a man can destroy a woman." Her handmaid sighed. "When it comes to matters of the heart, immortals know nothing. — Paula Altenburg

In writing like this, he was letting truth from beyond time into history, and thus making history the handmaid of posterity and not its governor ... — Philip Pullman

The society in 'The Handmaid's Tale' is a throwback to the early Puritans whom I studied extensively at Harvard under Perry Miller, to whom the book is dedicated. — Margaret Atwood

I was not really aware of the dystopian genre before I read 'The Handmaid's Tale.' Many poets as well, like John Donne and Emily Dickinson, would be the influences; I specialized in Emily Dickinson at university. Both of those poets have really interesting ways of looking at life and death. — Samantha Shannon

God is love,' they once said, but we reversed that, and love, like heaven, was always just around the corner. The more difficult it was to love the particular man beside us, the more we believed in Love, abstract and total. We were waiting, always, for the incarnation. That word, made flesh. — Margaret Atwood

How were we to know we were happy? — Margaret Atwood

The only way in which Darwin's data made sense was to suppose that species battled for survival, and that evolution came when one slight adaptation of a species proved more successful than another in the battle: a process which he named 'natural selection'. There was nothing benevolent about the providence which watched over the process. Reason was served her notice as the handmaid of Christian revelation. — Diarmaid MacCulloch

Art is not the handmaid of politics. It is its own remedy! And its healing is sacral. — William Everson

The Church is the handmaid of tyranny and the steady enemy of liberty. — Thomas B. Macaulay

You could tell 'The Handmaid's Tale' from a male point of view. People have mistakenly felt that the women are oppressed, but power tends to organise itself in a pyramid. I could pick a male narrator from somewhere in that pyramid. It would interesting. — Margaret Atwood

I like science fiction. Arthur C. Clarke, Philip K. Dick and Vonnegut, and I really like Margaret Atwood, 'The Handmaid's Tale.' And you know, so much of science fiction has to do with predicting what's to come, so I think that's really interesting. — Conor Oberst

Anger, even when it punishes the faults of delinquents, ought not to precede reason as its mistress, but attend as a handmaid at the back of reason, to come to the front when bidden. For once it begins to take control of the mind, it calls just what it does cruelly. — George William Curtis

Shall it any longer be said that a science [geology], which unfolds such abundant evidence of the Being and Attributes of God, can reasonably be viewed in any other light than as the efficient Auxiliary and Handmaid of Religion? — William Buckland

Hunger is the handmaid of genius — Mark Twain

Speech is the mother, not the handmaid, of thought. — Karl Kraus

In literature there is no such thing as a pure thought; in literature, thought is always the handmaid of emotion. — J. Middleton Murry

Statistics has been the handmaid of science, and has poured a flood of light upon the dark questions of famine and pestilence, ignorance and crime, disease and death. — James A. Garfield

By viewing nature, nature's handmaid art, Makes mighty things from small beginnings grow: Thus fishes first to shipping did impart, Their tail the rudder, and their head the prow. — John Dryden

I would like to believe this is a story I'm telling. I need to believe it. I must believe it. Those who can believe that such stories are only stories have a better chance. If it's a story I'm telling, then I have control over the ending. Then there will be an ending, to the story, and real life will come after it. I can pick up where I left off. — Margaret Atwood

I look upon statistics as the handmaid of medicine, but on that very account I hold that it befits medicine to treat her handmaid with proper respect, and not to prostitute her services for controversial or personal purposes. — Karl Pearson

Nature, the handmaid of God Almighty, does nothing but with good advice, if we make research into the true reason of things. — James Howell

I knew from reading about Sarah Grimke that she'd been given a handmaid to be her personal slave and that her name was Hetty. The only other fact I knew about her was that Sarah taught her to read: They conspired in a very subversive way, by locking the door and screening the keyhole. — Sue Monk Kidd

I want anything that breaks the monotony, subverts the perceived respectable order of things. — Margaret Atwood

The way love feels is always only approximate. I would like to be without shame. I would like to be shameless. I would like to be ignorant. Then I would not know how ignorant I was. — Margaret Atwood

On the top of my desk there are initials, carved into the wood, and dates ... This carving, done with a pencil dug many times into the warn varnish of the desk, has the pathos of all vanished civilizations. It's like a handprint on stone. Whoever made this was once alive. — Margaret Atwood

Education should be the handmaid of citizenship. — Calvin Coolidge

In the name of social order, liberal thought, and sometimes even Christianity, the novelist is asked to be the handmaid of his age. — Flannery O'Connor

Here, reality is not subordinated to painting, indeed painting seems the handmaid of reality, though we feel it tending towards a procedure which, while not at the mercy of appearances, is not yet in conflict with them. — Andre Malraux