Jane Welsh Carlyle quotes

Jane Welsh Carlyle was a Scottish writer and intellectual, renowned for her insightful letters and sharp wit. Her correspondence offers a unique perspective on Victorian society and literary circles. She is often celebrated for her influence on her husband, Thomas Carlyle, and her legacy as a brilliant letter-writer. Here are 23 of her quotes:

The surest way to get a thing in this life is to be prepared for doing without it, to the exclusion even of hope. (Jane Welsh Carlyle)

When one has been threatened with a great injustice, one accepts a smaller as a favour.

Jane Welsh Carlyle

I am not at all the sort of person you and I took me for.

Jane Welsh Carlyle

Not a hundredth part of the thoughts in my head have ever been or ever will be spoken or written - as long as I keep my senses, at least.

Jane Welsh Carlyle

The glittering baits of titles and honours are only for children and fools.

Jane Welsh Carlyle

If they had said that the sun or the moon had gone out of the heavens, it could not have struck me with the idea of a more awful and dreary blank in creation than the words: Byron is dead!

Jane Welsh Carlyle

I rely on the promise, God is kind to women, fools, and drunk people.

Jane Welsh Carlyle

A positive engagement to marry a certain person at a certain time, at all haps and hazards, I have always considered the most ridiculous thing on earth.

Jane Welsh Carlyle

Instead of boiling up individuals into the species, I would draw a chalk circle round every individuality, and preach to it to keep within that, and preserve and cultivate its identity.

Jane Welsh Carlyle

In spite of the honestest efforts to annihilate my I-ity, or merge it in what the world doubtless considers my better half, I still find myself a self-subsisting, and, alas! self-seeking me.

Jane Welsh Carlyle

The triumphal-procession-air which, in our manners and customs, is given to marriage at the outset - that singing of Te Deum before the battle has begun. (Jane Welsh Carlyle)

How many precious things do we not already possess which others have not - have hardly an idea of! Let us enjoy these, then, and bless God that we are permitted to enjoy them, rather than importune His goodness with vain longings for more.

Jane Welsh Carlyle

Teaching, I find, is not the most amusing thing on earth; in fact, with a stupid lump for a Pupil, it is about the most irksome.

Jane Welsh Carlyle

Homeopathy - an invention of the Father of Lies! I have tried it and found it wanting. I would swallow their whole doles medicine chest for sixpence, and be sure of finding myself neither better nor worse for it.

Jane Welsh Carlyle

Young children are such nasty little beasts!

Jane Welsh Carlyle

I have lived so long among people who do not understand me, been so long accustomed to refrain and disguise myself for fear of being laughed at, that I have grown as difficult to come at as a snail in a shell; and what is worse, I cannot come out of my shell when I wish it.

Jane Welsh Carlyle

Never does one feel oneself so utterly helpless as in trying to speak comfort for great bereavement. I will not try it. Time is the only comforter for the loss of a mother.

Jane Welsh Carlyle

Does not a man physically tremble under the mere look of a wild beast or fellow-man that is stronger than himself? Does not a woman redden all over when she feels her lover's eyes on her? How then should one doubt the mysterious power of one individual over another?

Jane Welsh Carlyle

I can see that the Lady has a genius for ruling, whilst I have a genius for not being ruled.

Jane Welsh Carlyle

Oh Lord! If you but knew what a brimstone of a creature I am behind all this beautiful amiability!

Jane Welsh Carlyle

'On earth the living have much to bear;' the difference is chiefly in the manner of bearing, and my manner of bearing is far from being the best. (Jane Welsh Carlyle)

Time is the only comforter for the loss of a mother.

Jane Welsh Carlyle

A fashionable wife! Oh! Never will I be anything so heartless! I have pictured for myself a far higher destiny than this. - Will it ever be more than a picture?

Jane Welsh Carlyle

Jane Welsh Carlyle

Jane Welsh Carlyle - Image

Occupation: Scottish Writer
Born: January 14, 1801
Died: April 21, 1866
Quotes count: 23
Wikipedia: Jane Welsh Carlyle

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