Mrs. Alfred Gatty > Quotes

“We take a great deal for granted in this world, and expect that everything as a matter of course ought to fit into our humours, and wishes, and wants; and it is often only when danger threatens, that we awake to the discovery, that the guiding reins are held by One whom we had well-nigh forgotten in our careless ease. "If”
― Margaret Gatty, Parables from Nature

“But he had seen so little of life and the world himself, that he could scarcely help being one-sided and narrow-minded; and as he would not avail himself of his father's wider knowledge, what remained but to make mistakes? So, priding himself on an inflexible firmness in matters of "principle," however small, he confounded together things indifferent and important; did even wise ones foolishly; and attempted others which were neither wise, nor worth a hundredth part of the offence they created. "We”
― Mrs. Alfred Gatty, Parables from Nature

“We may not always know what we're wanted for, nor is it for us to enquire, but nobody is useless as long as he is permitted to live.”
― Margaret Gatty, Parables from Nature

“A lower power cannot compass the full understanding of a higher. But to limit one's belief to the bounds of one's own small powers, would be to tie oneself down to the foot of a tree, and deny the existence of its upper branches.”
― Mrs Alfred Gatty

“The wicked natural man loves contest; the weak natural man loves excitement. An”
― Mrs. Alfred Gatty, Parables from Nature

“And yet every question has its two sides. A proverb is an excellent thing in its way. Full of wisdom,—but the wisdom is limited. Full of observation,—but the observation is often one-sided. Nothing, therefore, is more liable to be misused; and a genuine proverb-monger—he who chills off your enthusiasm by a tame truism, and stops rational conversation by a wise platitude—is a pest to civilized society.”
― Mrs. Alfred Gatty, Legendary Tales

“But, somehow or other, it is always the young and inexperienced, who are most apt to be positive and self-willed in their opinions; and so, the young Spruce-fir, thinking neither of the lessons which Nature was teaching, nor of his own limited means of judging, stuck out his branches all round him in everybody's face, right and left, and said— "Never!" It”
― Margaret Gatty, Parables from Nature

“Then I will tell you!” cried little Aglaia, springing lightly high into the air, and descending gently on a huge shell at her feet; “She likes every thing she does, and she likes to be always doing something. You can’t put the meaning into one word, as you can Beauty and Riches; but still itis something. Can’t you think of some way of saying what I have told you? Dear me, how stupid you are all grown. And liking isn’t the right word: it is something stronger than common liking.” “Love, perhaps,” murmured Leila.”
― Margaret Gatty, Fairy Godmothers and Other Tales

“What could put comparisons, and envyings, and heart-burnings into their heads, so filling them either with conceit or melancholy misgivings? As if there was but one way of being right or doing right; as if every creature was not good after its kind, but must needs be good after somebody else's kind, or not be good at all!”
― Mrs. Alfred Gatty, Parables from Nature

“At all times there is something saddening mixed with the sweetness of fulfilled wishes; for never, till then, do we realize their insufficiency to make us as happy as we have expected.”
― Mrs. Alfred Gatty, Legendary Tales

“Obedience to a law which cannot be resisted is not the service of the heart—not the highest tribute to the Creator's glory. Far dearer to Him may be the struggle by which the human will is subdued to unison with the will Divine, in anticipation of that day when all its wisdom shall be made known.”
― Margaret Gatty, Parables from Nature

“When obedience and faith are made perfect, it may be that knowledge and explanation shall be given.”
― Margaret Gatty, Parables from Nature

“Imperfect judgments; judgments formed on half-known grounds; judgments formed by the lesser intelligence concerning a greater which it cannot comprehend—what rebellion and ruin have they not caused! "It”
― Mrs. Alfred Gatty, Parables from Nature

“Now James was a Yorkshireman,—and Yorkshiremen always seem firm adherers to the old proverb, that “None but fools wonder;” for there is no surprising them, even in their most unguarded moments, into an expression of astonishment and admiration.”
― Mrs. Alfred Gatty, Legendary Tales

“There are seasons in life, daughter,” he said, “in which all the common rules of life fail; seasons in which all the usages, and forms, and conventionalities must be thrown aside, as matters of the supremest indifference.”
― Mrs. Alfred Gatty, Legendary Tales