English poet and essayist (1743-1825)
London is the best place in the world to cure a person of extravagance.
ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD
Tales, Poems and Essays
There is no one quality gives so much dignity to a character, as consistency of conduct. Even if a man's pursuits be wrong and unjustifiable, yet if they are prosecuted with steadiness and vigor, we cannot withhold our admiration.
ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD
Tales, Poems and Essays
Friendship, where it is quite sincere and affectionate, free from affectation or interested views, is one of the greatest blessings of life. It doubles our joys, and it lessens our sorrows, when we are able to pour both into the bosom of one who takes the tenderest part in all our interests, who is to us as another self. We love to communicate all our feelings; and it is in the highest degree grateful where we can do it to one who will. enter into them all; who takes an interest in everything that befalls us; before whom we can freely indulge even our little weaknesses and foibles, and show our minds as it were undressed; who will take part in all our schemes, advise us in any emergency; who rejoices in our company, and who, we are sure, thinks of us in our absence.
ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD
Tales, Poems and Essays
There is a cast of manners peculiar and becoming to each age, sex, and profession; one, therefore, should not throw out illiberal and common-place censures against another. Each is perfect in its kind -- a woman as a woman; a tradesman as a tradesman.
ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD
Tales, Poems and Essays
On Fancy's wild and roving wing I sail,
From the green borders of the peopled Earth,
And the pale Moon, her duteous fair attendant;
From solitary Mars; from the vast orb
Of Jupiter, whose huge gigantic bulk
Dances in ether like the lightest leaf;
To the dim verge, the suburbs of the system,
Where cheerless Saturn 'midst his watery moons
Girt with a lucid zone, in gloomy pomp,
Sits like an exiled monarch: fearless thence
I launch into the trackless deeps of space,
Where, burning round, ten thousand suns appear,
Of elder beam, which ask no leave to shine
Of our terrestrial star, nor borrow light
From the proud regent of our scanty day;
Sons of the morning, first-born of creation,
And only less than Him who marks their track,
And guides their fiery wheels.
ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD
"A Summer Evening's Meditation"
The worst slavery is that which we voluntarily impose upon ourselves; and no chains are so cumbrous and galling as those which we are pleased to wear by way of grace and ornament.
ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD
Tales, Poems and Essays
It would be a pleasing speculation to see how the arbitrary divisions of kingdoms and provinces vary and become obsolete, and large towns flourish and fall again into ruins: while the great natural features, the mountains, rivers, and seas remain unchanged, by whatever names we please to call them, whatever empire encloses them within its temporary boundaries.
ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD
Tales, Poems and Essays
Friends are most easily acquired in youth, but they are likewise most easily lost.
ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD
Tales, Poems and Essays
Education, it is often observed, is an expensive thing. It is so; but the paying for lessons is the smallest part of the cost.
ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD
Tales, Poems and Essays