Letitia Quotes & Sayings

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

I saw an e-mail from one guy who's about 23 to one of peers. His parting sign-off was 'Don't let the bedbugs bite.' Now that's really poetic. — Letitia Baldrige

I don't care what your politics are, I would wager that if you asked any American woman which administration would she have most liked to work for as social secretary, she would pick Jacqueline Kennedy's White House as the place to be. — Letitia Baldrige

We have lost the art of conversation. People are shy and don't know how to approach other people, and they are missing opportunities for relationships. And no one's entertaining at home anymore. They're not having people over for dinner. — Letitia Baldrige

All sweeping assertions are erroneous. — Letitia Elizabeth Landon

I have no parting sigh to give, so take my parting smile. — Letitia Elizabeth Landon

When someone is wearing a dress that makes her look fat, don't say 'That's a great dress.' It always comes off badly. — Letitia Baldrige

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

It is a curious fact, but one which all experience owns, that people do not desire so much to appear better, as to appear different from what they really are. — Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Sneering springs out of the wish to deny; and wretched must that state of mind be that wishes to take refuge in doubt. — Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Enthusiasm is the divine particle in our composition: with it we are great, generous, and true; without it, we are little, false, and mean. — Letitia Elizabeth Landon

People are less grateful than they used to be. — Letitia Baldrige

If a beauty like Letitia Tarnower couldn't interest Mairelon, and a brilliant wizard like Renee D'Auber hadn't attracted him in all the years they'd known one another, what chance did she, Kim, have? — Patricia C. Wrede

We love music for the buried hopes, the garnered memories, the tender feelings it can summon at a touch. — Letitia Elizabeth Landon

One would think that an unsuccessful volume was like a degree in the school of reviewing. One unread work makes the judge bitter enough; but a second failure, and he is quite desperate in his damnation. I do believe one half of the injustice - the severity of 'the ungentle craft' originates in its own want of success: they cannot forgive the popularity which has passed them over ... — Letitia Elizabeth Landon

When writing a thank-you if you've had lunch with someone downtown, send an e-mail. If somebody is giving you a dinner party in his or her home and all the work that takes, that person deserves a written thank-you. — Letitia Baldrige

Really, Agatha, you might have told me."
"Told you what?" Mairelon said. "That my ward was once a street thief? I didn't think it was a secret."
"A street thief?" Letitia wrinkled her nose and looked at Kim with disfavor. "How horrid."
"I think it is the most romantic story I have ever heard", Miss Matthews said with conviction. — Patricia C. Wrede

I think that what we should do is have short, clipped conversations on the telephone so someone can always get us, not talking about inane stuff and having someone trying to get you. I also think we've just got to be more sensitive toward other people and not call them at night if you know they've been working. — Letitia Baldrige

Social life is filled with doubts and vain aspirings; solitude, when the imagination is dethroned, is turned to weariness and ennui. — Letitia Elizabeth Landon

I cannot see why a taste for the country should be held so very indispensable a requisite for excellence; but really people talk of it as if it were a virtue, and as if an opposite opinion was, to say the least of it, very immoral. — Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Business colleagues who have not seen each other for a long time but who have a good relationship can always shake hands warmly and grab each other's right upper arm or shoulder with their free left hand. Men and women executives should not kiss each other in public. — Letitia Baldrige

Everybody forgets names and faces, and it's just inconsiderate to expect someone who isn't your boss or your sister-in-law to know exactly who you are. — Letitia Baldrige

Words alike make the destiny of empires and of individuals. Ambition, love, hate, interest, vanity, have words for their engines, and need none more powerful. Language is a fifth element - the one by which all the others are swayed. — Letitia Elizabeth Landon

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

I never made any money, but I had the best jobs in the world. — Letitia Baldrige

At home, we're listening to TV or playing with our computers, so our entertaining is rusting. We don't know how to be good hosts and guests in business situations. — Letitia Baldrige

Look at all those unattractive people talking about depraved things all day long on TV talk shows. People can talk about themselves, yet the art of conversation, which has to do with sharing, is disappearing. I feel as though I am chasing a runaway locomotive. — Letitia Baldrige

Affection exaggerates its own offenses ... — Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Consistency is a human word, but it certainly expresses nothing human. — Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Tea time is a chance to slow down, pull back and appreciate our surroundings. — Letitia Baldrige

I talk about beepers going off in the middle of a concert and people being late and not apologizing, and people not RSVP-ing, and adult children going back to live with their parents, which we didn't have in the '60s and '70s. — Letitia Baldrige

Hopes and regrets are the sweetest links of existence. — Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Dust that never asks in vain
Hath reclaim'd its own again.
Dust, the wide world's king.
Where are now the glorious hours
Of a nation's gather'd powers?
Like the setting of a star,
In the fathomless afar;
Time's eternal wing
Hath around those ruins cast
The dark presense of the past. — Letitia E. Landon

Ah, tell me not that memory sheds gladness o'er the past, what is recalled by faded flowers, save that they did not last? — Letitia Elizabeth Landon

The polished executive is ultimately the happy executive who can walk gracefully through life. — Letitia Baldrige

The whole art of flirting has simply disappeared. This probably will do further damage. If we're going to become so uptight that we can't say nice things to each other, then we've had it! — Letitia Baldrige

How beautiful, how buoyant, and glad is morning! — Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Curiosity and courtesy are very often at variance. — Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Nothing ruins the flow of conversation more quickly than refusing a compliment you have just received. Never disagree with something nice that is said to you or about you. — Letitia Baldrige

What the bride should do is call guests who have young children and say: 'I'd love to have the kids at the wedding, but we won't have room. Would you get a baby sitter, and when we get back from our honeymoon, we'll have you guys over?' — Letitia Baldrige

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

That's how a nation's manners are going to be taught - from watching others' behavior and learning from the effects of that behavior. — Letitia Baldrige

Habit is a second nature, and what was at first pleasure, is next necessity. — Letitia Elizabeth Landon

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

It behooves everyone to move forward, think forward. — Letitia Baldrige

Letitia! What a name. Halfway between a salad and a sneeze. — Terry Pratchett

A real thank you does not come by e-mail. They come in the mail in an envelope. And what comes out of an envelope is a beautiful thing to touch and to handle and to pass around for everyone to read. — Letitia Baldrige

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

Nothing gets on other people's nerves at the office more than a whistler. And the sad part is, these whistlers don't know they're doing it. Someone should, tactfully, tell the whistler how much it disrupts the office environment. — Letitia Baldrige

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

Though fortune's wheel is generally on the turn, sometimes when it gets into the mud, it sticks there. — Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Thou know'st how fearless is my trust in thee. — Letitia Elizabeth Landon

An apt quotation is like a lamp which flings its light over the whole sentence. — Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Knowledge is much like dust - it sticks to one, one does not know how. — Letitia Elizabeth Landon

The world has little to bestow Where two fond hearts in equal love are joined. — 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 person talking to you never looks directly at you, but rather around the room, searching for the answer to the universal cocktail party question, 'Who's here tonight? — Letitia Baldrige

I've become a master of the apology. — Letitia Baldrige

If somebody is disrespecting somebody, we should step in - even at the risk of getting slugged over the head. — Letitia Baldrige

Farewell's a bitter word to say. — Letitia Elizabeth Landon

I can pass days
Stretch'd in the shade of those old cedar trees,
Watching the sunshine like a blessing fall,
The breeze like music wandering o'er the boughs,
Each tree a natural harp,
each different leaf
A different note, blent in one vast thanksgiving. — Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Writers on etiquette receive a continuous flow of questions on subjects such as 'When is it too early in the season to wear white accessories?' and 'What is the proper gift to send to a family in mourning?' — Letitia Baldrige

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

If you care enough to look right, you care enough to act right. And vice versa. — Letitia Baldrige

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

There is no denying that there are 'royal roads' through existence for the upper classes; for them, at least, the highways are macadamized, swept, and watered. — Letitia Elizabeth Landon

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

No thoroughly occupied man was ever yet very miserable. — Letitia Elizabeth Landon

But ignorance is happiness,When young Hope is to show the way — Letitia Elizabeth Landon

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

Politeness decrees that you must listen to be kind; intelligence decrees that you must listen to learn. — Letitia Baldrige

Ignorance, far more than idleness, is the mother of all the vices; and how recent has been the admission, that knowledge should be the portion of all? The destinies of the future lie in judicious education; an education that must be universal, to be beneficial. — Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Of all false assertions that ever went into the world under the banner of a great name and the mail armor of a well-turned phrase, Locke's comparison of the mind to a blank sheet of paper appears to me among the most untrue. — Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Distinction is purchased at the expense of sympathy — Letitia Elizabeth Landon

In our road through life we may happen to meet with a man casting a stone reverentially to enlarge the cairn of another which stone he has carried in his bosom to sling against that very other's head. — Letitia Elizabeth Landon

It was said of Miss Letitia that when money came into her possession it went out of circulation. — Mary Roberts Rinehart

The past is perpetual youth to the heart. — Letitia Elizabeth Landon

I never cast a flower away,
A gift of one who car'd for me;
A flower
a faded flower,
But it was done reluctantly. — Letitia Elizabeth Landon

We are ourselves the stumbling-blocks in the way of our happiness. Place a common individual - by common, I mean with the common share of stupidity, custom, and discontent - place him in the garden of Eden, and he would not find it out unless he were told, and when told, he would not believe it. — Letitia Elizabeth Landon

If the flu situation in your town is serious, cancel a large long-awaited party you had scheduled, but promise the guests in an e-mail that you will reschedule the party as soon as possible. — Letitia Baldrige

Women have to be a lot smarter and brighter and have to work a lot harder to prepare themselves. They have to watch what they do and how they behave. It's not a free world yet. — Letitia Baldrige

My tears are buried in my heart, like cave-locked fountains sleeping. — Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Habit is our idea of eternity. — Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Let me guess. You think we're going to live happily ever after, like some stupid fairy tale?"
"Why not?" His stare dared me to laugh or, worse, to argue.
"Because the whole thing is ridiculous," I said. I despised the bitterness in my own voice. I sounded so damaged. Good. If he thought I was his soul mate for some mysterious reason he wouldn't let on, let him see the worst of me.
"It's not ridiculous to me. Perhaps that's the difference between predators and prey, love. I'll never stop hunting. But I expect that one day, you'll stop running."
"Because I want to die?"
"Because you want to live. — Delilah S. Dawson

Toil is the portion of day, as sleep is that of night; but if there be one hour of the twenty-four which has the life of day without its labor, and the rest of night without its slumber, it is the lovely and languid hour of twilight. — Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Fame is bought by happiness. — Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Youth is a season that has no repose. — Letitia Elizabeth Landon

There is no existence so content as that whose present is engrossed by employment, and whose future is filled by some strong hope, the truth of which is never proved. Toil and illusion are the only secrets to make life tolerable ... — Letitia Elizabeth Landon

A preface is a species of literary luxury, where an author, like a lover, is privileged to be egotistical ... — Letitia Elizabeth Landon

It is said that ridicule is the test of truth: it is never applied, but when we wish to deceive ourselves ... — Letitia Elizabeth Landon

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

I will look on the stars and look on thee, and read the page of thy destiny. — Letitia Landon

My heart is its own grave! — Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Eating American-style, you put the knife down and clang. Continental is silent and efficient. — Letitia Baldrige

Ingratitude is the necessary consequence of receiving favors of which we are ashamed. — Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Curiosity is its own suicide ... — Letitia Elizabeth Landon

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

I've had three broken legs and two knee replacements. But I'm very good at apres golf. — Letitia Baldrige

Whatever people in general do not understand, they are always prepared to dislike; the incomprehensible is always the obnoxious. — Letitia Landon

It's nice to compliment people on what they're wearing, but don't make insincere compliments. — Letitia Baldrige