240 Quotes by Frances Hodgson Burnett

When Mary Lennox was sent to Misselthwaite Manor to live with her uncle everybody said she was the most disagreeable-looking child ever seen.

And that is best of all, Ceddie, – it is better than everything else, that the world should be a little better because a man has lived – even ever so little better, dearest.

Her affection for everything she could love increased.

She was a sweet, pretty thing and he’d have walked the world over to get her a blade o’ grass she wanted.

If she had cried and sobbed and seemed frightened, Miss Minchin might almost have had more patience with her. She was a woman who liked to domineer and feel her power, and as she looked at Sara’s pale little steadfast face and heard her proud little voice, she felt quite as if her mind was being set at naught.

Never did she find anything so difficult as to keep herself from losing her temper when she was suddenly disturbed while absorbed in a book. People who are fond of books know the feeling of irritation which sweeps over them at such a moment. The temptation to be unreasonable and snappish is one not easy to manage.

When people are insulting you, there is nothing so good for them as not to say a word – just to look at them and think. When you will not fly into a passion people know you are stronger than they are, because you are strong enough to hold in your rage, and they are not, and they say stupid things they wished they hadn’t said afterward. There’s nothing so strong as rage, except what makes you hold it in – that’s stronger. It’s a good thing not to answer your enemies.

Children’s as good as ‘rithmetic to set you findin’ out things.

Dickon says anything will understand if you’re friends with it for sure, but you have to be friends for sure.