Mary Augusta Ward

"All things change,—creeds and philosophies and outward systems,—but God remains!"

"Is there any other slavery and chain like that of temperament?"

"A life spent largely among books, and in the exercise of a literary profession, has very obvious drawbacks, as a subject matter, when one comes to write about it."

"There is nothing more startling in human relations than the strong emotions of weak people."

"[T]he better life cannot be imposed from without—it must grow from within."

"We enjoy the great prophets of literature most when we have not yet lived enough to realise all they tell us."

"Place before your eyes two precepts, and two only. One is, Preach the Gospel; and the other is—Put down enthusiasm! […] — the Church of England in a nutshell."

"Other trades may fail. The agitator is always sure of his market."

"To reconceive the Christ! It is the special task of our age."

"Customers must be delicately angled for at a safe distance—show yourself too much, and, like , they flashed away."

"[T]he delight in natural things—colours, forms, scents—when there was nothing to restrain or hamper it, has often been a kind of intoxication, in which thought and consciousness seemed suspended."

"This Laodicean cant of tolerance."