Date: 1795 (w. 1787)

"Words may flatter you, but the countenance never can deceive you; the eyes are the windows of the soul, and through them you are to watch what passes in the inmost recesses of the heart."

— Edgeworth, Maria

Date: 1796

"'Your son,' concluded he, 'will quickly put off his dirty dress—The dress hath not stained the mind—that is fair and honourable.""

— Edgeworth, Maria

Date: 1798

"On the contrary, if, to entice him to enter the paths of knowledge, we strew them with flowers, how will he feel when he must force his way through thorns and briars?"

— Edgeworth, Maria

Date: 1798

"Words without correspondent ideas are worse than useless, they are counterfeit coin, which imposes upon the ignorant and unwary; but words, which really represent ideas, are not only of current use, but of sterling value; they not only shew our present store, but they increase our wealth by keep...

— Edgeworth, Maria

Date: 1798

"Objects or thoughts, that have been associated with pleasure, retain the power of pleasing; as the needle touched by the loadstone acquires polarity, and retains it long after the loadstone is withdrawn."

— Edgeworth, Maria

Date: 1798

"When once this generous desire of affection and esteem is raised in the mind, their exertions seem to be universal, and spontaneous: children are then no longer like machines, which require to be wound up regularly to perform certain revolutions; they are animated with a living principle, which ...

— Edgeworth, Maria

Date: 1798

"Man has been defined to be a bundle of habits; till the bundle is made up we may continually increase or diminish it."

— Edgeworth, Maria

Date: 1798

"Some people imagine, that the memory resembles a storehouse, in which we should early lay up facts; and they assert, that, however useless these may appear at the time when they are layed up, they will afterwards be ready for service at our summons."

— Edgeworth, Maria

Date: 1798

Habits of eight or nine years standing cannot be instantaneously, perhaps can never be radically destroyed; they will mix themselves imperceptibly with the new ideas which are planted in their minds, and though these may strike the eye by the rapidity of their growth, the others, which have taken...

— Edgeworth, Maria

Date: 1798

"In making observations upon subjects which are new to us, we must be content to use our memory unassisted at first by our reason; we must treasure up the ore and rubbish together, because we cannot immediately distinguish them from each other."

— Edgeworth, Maria