48 Quotes by Anna Letitia Barbauld

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

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.

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.

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.

if an author would have us feel a strong degree of compassion, his characters must not be too perfect.

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

we should contract our ideas of education, and expect no more from it than it is able to perform.

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

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.