Maria Edgeworth Men Quotations

In marrying, a man does not, to be sure, marry his wife's mother; and yet a prudent man, when he begins to think of the daughter, would look sharp at the mother; ay, and back to the grandmother too, and along the whole female line of ancestry.

Sir Patrick Rackrent lived and died a monument of old Irish hospitality.

Obtain power, then, by all means; power is the law of man; make it yours.

We cannot judge either of the feelings or of the characters of men with perfect accuracy from their actions or their appearance in public; it is from their careless conversations, their half-finished sentences, that we may hope with the greatest probability of success to discover their real characters.

A man who sells his conscience for his interest will sell it for his pleasure. A man who will betray his country will betray his friend.

Man is to be held only by the slightest chains; with the idea that he can break them at pleasure, he submits to them in sport.

How success changes the opinion of men!

We may make our future by the best use of the present. There is no moment like the present.

There is no moment like the present. The man who will not execute his resolutions when they are fresh upon him can have no hope from them afterwards: they will be dissipated, lost, and perish in the hurry and scurry of the world, or sunk in the slough of indolence.

Artificial manners vanish the moment the natural passions are touched.

Young ladies who think of nothing but dress, public amusements, and forming what they call high connexions, are undoubtedly most easily managed, by the fear of what the world will say of them.

Idleness, ennui, noise, mischief, riot, and a nameless train of mistaken notions of pleasure, are often classed, in a young man's mind, under the general head of liberty.

There are two sorts of content; one is connected with exertion, the other with habits of indolence. The first is a virtue; the other, a vice.

The labor of thinking was so great to me, that having once come to a conclusion upon any subject, I would rather persist in it, right or wrong, than be at the trouble of going over the process again to revise and rectify my judgment.

every man who takes a part in politics, especially in times when parties run high, must expect to be abused; they must bear it; and their friends must learn to bear it for them.

No man ever distinguished himself who could not bear to be laughed at.

Love occupies a vast space in a woman's thoughts, but fills a small portion in a man's life.