17 Quotes by Rosamond Lehmann

There was sadness in everything—in the room, in the ringing bird-calls from the garden, in the lit, golden lawn beyond the window, with its single miraculous cherry-tree breaking in immaculate blossom and tossing long foamy sprays against the sky. She was sad to the verge of tears, and yet the sorrow was rich—a suffocating joy.

Advice to Young Journal Keepers. Be lenient with yourself. Conceal your worst faults, leave out your most shameful thoughts, actions, and temptations. Give yourself all the good and interesting qualities you want and haven't got. If you should die young, what comfort would it be to your relatives to read the truth and have to say: It is not a pearl we have lost, but a swine?

It’s the thought that counts.

Looking back into childhood is like looking into a semi-transparent globe within which people and places lie embedded. A shake – and they stir, rise up, circle in inter-weaving groups, then settle down again.

How long, I wonder, will ignorance spell purity and knowledge shame?

One must have the humility and the imagination to honor all deep human experiences – not least those one has never come near to sharing.

One can present people with opportunities. One cannot make them equal to them.

Convention is another name for the habits of society.

There was sadness in everything – in the room, in the ringing bird-calls from the garden, in the lit, golden lawn beyond the window, with its single miraculous cherry-tree breaking in immaculate blossom and tossing long foamy sprays against the sky. She was sad to the verge of tears, and yet the sorrow was rich – a suffocating joy.