Stephanie Bennett Henry

Time is but the stream I go fishing in. I drink at it, but while I drink I see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is. It’s thin current slides away, but eternity remains.

Will not a tiny speck very close to our vision blot out the glory of the world, and leave only a margin by which we see the blot? I know no speck so troublesome as self.

Not only must we be good, but we must also be good for something.

What do we call love, hate, charity, revenge, humanity, forgiveness? Different results of the master impulse, the necessity of securing one’s self-approval.

We carry inside us the wonders we seek outside us.

…with the black marble which gives the fireplace the air of a miniature family vault, to suggest early Victorian commercial respectability, belief in money, Bible fetichism, fear of hell always at war with fear of poverty, instinctive horror of the passionate character of art, love and Roman Catholic religion, and all the first fruits of plutocracy in the early generations of the industrial revolution.

It is the false shame of fools to try to conceal wounds that have not healed.

It is our less conscious thoughts and our less conscious actions which mainly mould our lives and the lives of those who spring from us.

Surely a long life must be somewhat tedious, since we are forced to call in so many trifling things to help rid us of our time, which will never return.

The hearing ear is always found close to the speaking tongue; and no genius can long or often utter anything which is not invited and gladly entertained by men around him.

The applause of a single human being is of great consequence.

What do we live for, if not to make life less difficult for each other?

The torments of martyrdom are probably most keenly felt by the bystanders.

The angels are so enamoured of the language that is spoken in heaven, that they will not distort their lips with the hissing and unmusical dialects of men, but speak their own, whether there be any who understand it or not.

There is no life I know to compare with pure imagination. Living there, you’ll be free if you truly wish to be.