Welcome to the web’s most comprehensive site of quotations by women. 43,939 quotations are searchable by topic, by author's name, or by keyword. Many of them appear in no other collection. And new ones are added continually.
Search by Topic:
Find quotations by TOPIC (coffee, love, dogs)
or search alphabetically below.
Search by Last Name:
Search by Keyword:
Margot Asquith
-
“The Almighty is a wonderful handicapper: He will not give us everything.”
-
“About the crowds on the eve of the declaration of World War I:] From the happy expression on their faces you might have supposed that they welcomed the war. I have met with men who loved stamps, and stones, and snakes, but I could not imagine any man loving war.”
-
“I have always wanted to be a man, if only for the reason that I would like to have gauged the value of my intellect.”
-
“[Describing a woman of the British aristocracy:] Rectitude, platitude, high-hatitude.”
-
“Rumor is untraceable, incalculable, and infectious.”
-
“I have been devoured all my life by an incurable and burning impatience: and to this day find all oratory, biography, operas, films, plays, books, and persons, too long.”
-
“The capacity to suffer varies more than anything that I have observed in human nature.”
-
“Convictions no doubt have to be modified or expanded to meet changing conditions but ... to be a reliable political leader sooner or later your anchors must hold fast where other men's drag.”
-
“Clothes are symbols, and symbols are the imaginative signposts of life.”
-
“There are some people that you cannot change, you must either swallow them whole, or leave them alone. ...”
-
“You can do something with talent, but nothing with genius ...”
-
“It is easier to influence strong than weak characters in life ...”
-
“Till I see money spent on the betterment of man instead of on his idleness and destruction, I shall not believe in any perfect form of government ...”
-
“The power to love what is purely abstract is given to few.”
-
“It is not dying, but living, that is a preparation for Death.”
-
“My sort of looks are of the kind that bore me when I see them on other people.”
-
“... although I am not stupid, the mathematical side of my brain is like dumb notes upon a damaged piano ...”
-
“All I can say about my mind is that, like a fire carefully laid by a good housemaid, it is one that any match will light ...”
-
“... the announcement that you are going to tell a good story (and the chuckle that precedes it) is always a dangerous opening.”
-
“Too much brilliance has its disadvantages, and misplaced wit may raise a laugh, but often beheads a topic of profound interest.”
-
“There is nothing more perplexing in life than to know at what point you should surrender your intellect to your faith.”
-
“[On Austen Chamberlain:] He is more loyal to his friends than to his convictions.”
-
“[On Lord Hugh Cecil:] I saw him riding in the Row, clinging to his horse like a string of onions.”
-
“[On Lord Birkenhead:] He's very clever, but sometimes his brains go to his head.”
-
“Like many successful organisers he has an uninteresting mind.”
-
“[Of Lady Desborough:] She tells enough white lies to ice a wedding cake.”
-
“[On David Lloyd George:] He couldn't see a belt without hitting below it.”
-
“[On spiritualism:] I always knew the living talked rot, but it's nothing to the rot the dead talk.”
-
“The spirit of man is an inward flame, a lamp the world blows upon, but never puts out ...”
-
“Dear boy, it isn't that your manners are bad — it's simply that you have no manners at all.”
-
“[To her host upon leaving a party:] Don't think it hasn't been charming, because it hasn't.”
-
“[On Lady Desborough:] She tells enough white lies to ice a wedding cake.”
Margot Asquith, Scottish-born English political figure, writer
(1864 - 1945)
Full name: Margaret Emma Alice Tennant, Countess of Oxford and Asquith.