Fanny Fern Quotes:

I am convinced that there are times in everybody's experience when there is so much to be done, that the only way to do it is to sit down and do nothing.

source: - "The Draft: Just Say No" by Ron Paul, original.antiwar.com. February 17, 2009.

Topics: Time, Done, Down And

Our domestic Napoleons, too many of them, give flattery, bonnets and bracelets to women, and everything else but - justice ...

source: - Fanny Fern (1868). “Folly as it Flies”, p.31

Topics: Giving, Justice, Flattery, Bracelet, Bonnets

Nowhere more than in New York does the contest between squalor and splendor so sharply present itself.

Topics: New York, Doe, Splendor, Squalor

I hate the word proper. If you tell me a thing is not proper, I immediately feel the most rabid desire to go 'neck and heels' into it.

source: - Fanny Fern (1873). “Fanny Fern [pseud.]: A Memorial Volume. Containing Her Select Writings and a Memoir”, p.497

Topics: Hate, Desire, Necks

Show me an 'easy person,' and I will show you a selfish one. Good-natured he may be; why not? since the disastrous consequences of his 'easiness' are generally shouldered by other people.

Topics: Selfish, People, Why Not, Easiness

Dear reader, true religion is not gloomy.

Topics: Gloomy, Dear, Reader

I want a human sermon. I don't care what Melchisedek, or Zerubbabel, or Kerenhappuk did, ages ago; I want to know what I am to do, and I want somebody besides a theological bookworm to tell me; somebody who is sometimes tempted and tried, and is not too dignified to own it; somebody like me, who is always sinning and repenting; somebody who is glad and sorry, and cries and laughs, and eats and drinks, and wants to fight when they are trodden on, and don't!

source: - Fanny Fern (2017). “Ginger-Snaps”, p.90, Litres

Topics: Sorry, Fighting, Laughing, Bookworms, Sinning

Can anybody tell me why reporters, in making mention of lady speakers, always consider it to be necessary to report, fully and firstly, the dresses worn by them? When John Jones or Senator Rouser frees his mind in public, we are left in painful ignorance of the color and fit of his pants, coat, necktie and vest - and worse still, the shape of his boots. This seems to me a great omission.

source: - Fanny Fern (1870). “Ginger-snaps”, p.114

Topics: Ignorance, Color, Omission, Neckties

To the Pilgrim Mothers, who not only had their full share of the hardships and privations of pioneer life but also had the Pilgrim Fathers to endure.

Topics: Mother, Father, Pioneers

Why will parents use that expression? What right have you to have a favorite child?

Topics: Children, Expression, Parent, Favorite Child

One person is as good as another in New England, and better, too.

Topics: England, Persons, New England

Blessed be sleep! We are all young then; we are all happy. Then our dead are living.

Topics: Blessed, Sleep, Young

a little oil makes machinery work easy ...

source: - FANNY FERN (1857). “FRESH LEAVES”, p.151

Topics: Oil, Littles, Easy

Hurry, drive and bustle ... Everybody looking out for number one, and caring little who jostled past, if their rights were not infringed.

source: - Fanny Fern (1868*). “Fern Leaves from Fanny's Portfolio ; And, Shadows and Sunbeams”

Topics: Caring, Past, Rights, Bustle

There are so many ready to write (poor fools!) for the honor and glory of the thing, and there are so many ready to take advantage of this fact, and withhold from needy talent the moral right to a deserved remuneration.

source: - Fanny Fern (2016). “Ruth Hall”, p.164, Fanny Fern

Topics: Writing, Honor, Fool, Remuneration

When a literary person's exhaustive work is over, the last thing he wishes to do is to talk books.

Topics: Book, Wish, Lasts

It is the most astonishing thing that persons who have not sufficient education to spell correctly, to punctuate properly, to place capital letters in the right places, should, when other means of support fail, send mss. for publication.

Topics: Mean, Support, Letters

Hoary-headed old Winter, I have had enough of you!

source: - FANNY FERN (1857). “FRESH LEAVES”, p.284

Topics: Winter, Had Enough, Enough

How strong sometimes is weakness!

Topics: Strong, Weakness, Sometimes

adversity is so rough a teacher!

Topics: Teacher, Adversity, Trouble

Fitz Allen had 'traveled;' and that is generally understood to mean to go abroad and remain a period of time long enough to grow a fierce beard, and fierce mustache, and cultivate a thorough contempt for everything in your own country.

Topics: Country, Travel, Mean

Hotel life is about the same in every latitude.

Topics: Travel, Life Is, Hotel, Latitude

Everything in the country, animate and inanimate, seems to whisper, be serene, be kind, be happy. We grow tolerant there unconsciously.

Topics: Country, Be Kind, Serene

light hearts seldom keep company with heavy coffers ...

Topics: Money, Heart, Light

The term 'lady' has been so misused, that I like better the old-fashioned term, woman.

source: - Fanny Fern (1868). “Folly as it Flies”, p.316

Topics: Old Fashioned, Term, Misused

Few husbands (and the longer I observe, the more I am convinced of the truth of what I am about to say, and I make no exception in favor of education or station) have the magnanimity to use justly, generously, the power which the law puts in their hands.

source: - Fanny Fern (2017). “Fresh Leaves”, p.257, Litres

Topics: Husband, Hands, Law, Magnanimity

Why don't men ... leave off those detestable stiff collars, stocks, and things, that make them all look like choked chickens, and which hide so many handsomely-turned throats, that a body never sees, unless a body is married, or unless a body happens to see a body's brothers while they are shaving.

Topics: Brother, Men, Clothes

Advice is like a doctor's pills; how easily he gives them! how reluctantly he takes them when his turn comes!

Topics: Doctors, Giving, Advice

Oh! to be a child again. My only treasures, bits of shell and stone and glass. To love nothing but maple sugar. To fear nothing but a big dog. To go to sleep without dreading the morrow. To wake up with a shout. Not to have seen a dead face. Not to dread a living one. To be able to believe.

source: - Fanny Fern (2015). “Ginger-Snaps”, p.110, Sheba Blake Publishing

Topics: Dog, Children, Believe

Too much indulgence has ruined thousands of children; too much love not one.

source: - Fanny Fern (1872). “Caper-sauce: A Volume of Chit-chat about Men, Women, and Things”, p.107

Topics: Children, Too Much, Ruined

What a pity when editors review a woman's book, that they so often fall into the error of reviewing the woman instead.

source: - Fanny Fern (2015). “Ginger-Snaps”, p.70, Sheba Blake Publishing

Topics: Book, Fall, Errors

No crust so tough as the grudged bread of dependence.

source: - Fanny Fern (1986). “Ruth Hall and Other Writings”, p.319, Rutgers University Press

Topics: Bread, Tough

they who are not fastidious as to the means, seldom fail of securing the result they aim at.

Topics: Mean, Morality, Dishonesty, Fastidious

You are taken sick; you send for a physician; he comes in, stays ten minutes, prescribes for you a healing medicine, and charges you three or four dollars. You call this 'extortionate' - forgetting the medical books he must have waded through, the revolting dissections he must have witnessed and participated in, and the medical lectures he must have digested, to have enabled him to pronounce on your case so summarily and satisfactorily.

Topics: Book, Taken, Healing, Dissection

I dare say you will try to make me believe that Editors are human. Now I deny that, for I myself have, in past days, had evidence to the contrary.

Topics: Believe, Past, Editors

I am getting sick of people. I am falling in love with things. They hold their tongues ...

source: - Fanny Fern (2016). “Folly as It Flies”, p.143, The Floating Press

Topics: Falling In Love, People, Sick

Well, it is a humiliating reflection, that the straightest road to a man's heart is through his palate.

source: - Fanny Fern (1854). “Shadows and Sunbeams”, p.205

Topics: Food, Heart, Reflection, Palate

Never ask a favor until you are drawing your last breath; and never forget one.

Topics: Drawing, Favors, Lasts

every father knows at once too much and too little about his own son ...

Topics: Father, Son, Littles

Experience is an excellent doctor, though he never had a diploma.

source: - Fanny Fern (1872). “Caper-sauce: A Volume of Chit-chat about Men, Women, and Things”, p.15

Topics: Doctors, Experience, Diploma

Pity that gold should always bring with it the canker - covetousness.

Topics: Envy, Gold, Pity

The cream of enjoyment in this life is always impromptu. The chance walk; the unexpected visit; the unpremeditated journey; the unsought conversation or acquaintance.

source: - Fanny Fern (1872). “Caper-sauce: A Volume of Chit-chat about Men, Women, and Things”, p.95

Topics: Life, Journey, Chance

O, girls! set your affections on cats, poodles, parrots or lap-dogs; but let matrimony alone. It's the hardest way on earth to getting a living.

source: - Fanny Fern (1986). “Ruth Hall and Other Writings”, p.221, Rutgers University Press

Topics: Girl, Dog, Cat, Lap Dogs

There are no little things. Little things are the hinges of the universe.

Topics: Littles, Little Things, Universe

To her, the name of father was another name for love.

Topics: Dad, Father, Names, Inspirational Father, Great Father

Uncles and aunts, and cousins, are all very well, and fathers and mothers are not to be despised; but a grandmother, at holiday time, is worth them all.

source: - Fanny Fern (2016). “Folly as It Flies”, p.25, The Floating Press

Topics: Mother, Cousin, Uncles, Mother And Grandmother, Mother Grandmother

The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.

source: - Fanny Fern (1986). “Ruth Hall and Other Writings”, p.32, Rutgers University Press

Topics: Sex, Food, Heart, Funny Men, Eating Food

There are no little things. "Little things," so called, are the hinges of the universe.

source: - "Ruth Hall and Other Writings".

Topics: Littles, Little Things, Hinges