... I have always been a disappointment to my friends. I have no gift of talk, not much to say; and though I have always been an excellent listener, that only succeeds under auspicious circumstances. — Margaret Oliphant Copy Share Image
It has been my fate in a long life of production to be credited chiefly with the equivocal virtue of industry, a quality so excellent in morals, so little satisfactory in art. — Margaret Oliphant Copy Share Image
What happiness is there which is not purchased with more or less of pain? — Margaret Oliphant Copy Share Image
I think reading a novel is almost next best to having something to do. — Margaret Oliphant Copy Share Image
Married people do stand up so for each other when you say a word, however they may fight between themselves. — Margaret Oliphant Copy Share Image
“Don’t you think a certain amount of civilisation is necessary before picture-frames will become remunerative? I don’t think you could live by them in… — Margaret Oliphant Copy Share Image
there are some people who never learn; indeed, few people learn by experience, so far as I have ever seen. — Margaret Oliphant Copy Share Image
As for pictures and museums, that don't trouble me. The worst of going abroad is that you've always got to look at things of… — Margaret Oliphant Copy Share Image
“The village lay in the hollow, and climbed, with very prosaic houses, the other side. Village architecture does not flourish in Scotland. The blue… — Margaret Oliphant Copy Share Image
Next to happiness, perhaps enmity is the most healthful stimulant of the human mind. — Margaret Oliphant Copy Share Image
“And there has been no attempt to investigate it,' I said, 'to see what it really is?' 'Eh, Cornel,' said the coachman's wife, 'wha… — Margaret Oliphant Copy Share Image
To have a man who can flirt is next thing to indispensable to a leader of society. — Margaret Oliphant Copy Share Image
For everybody knows that it requires very little to satisfy the gentlemen, if a woman will only give her mind to it. — Margaret Oliphant Copy Share Image
