Quote#Kindness
If an author would have us feel a strong degree of compassion, his…
Quote byAnna Laetitia Barbauld · 1743–1825
Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: The Works of Anna Laetitia Barbauld (1825), "An Inquiry into Those Kinds of Distress Which Excite Agreeable Sensations", Vol. II, p. 224..
English (original)
If an author would have us feel a strong degree of compassion, his characters must not be too perfect.
— Anna Laetitia Barbauld
More from Anna Laetitia Barbauld
It is to hope, tho' hope were lost.
Flowers, the sole luxury which nature knew, In Eden's pure and guiltless garden grew.[…] Gay without toil, and lovely without art, They spring to cheer the sense, and glad the heart.
O gently guide my pilgrim feet To find thy hermit cell; Where in some pure and equal sky Beneath thy soft indulgent eye The modest virtues dwell.
Child of mortality, whence comest thou? Why is thy countenance sad, and why are thine eyes red with weeping?
Man is the nobler growth our realms supply, And souls are ripen'd in our northern sky.
I read his awful name, emblazon'd high With golden letters on th' illumin'd sky.