Date: 1777

"The philosophical doctrine of the slow recession of bodies from the sun, is a lively image of the reluctance with which we first abandon the light of virtue."

— More, Hannah (1745-1833)

Date: 1777

"For it is in moral as in natural things, the motion in minds as well as bodies is accelerated by a nearer approach to the centre to which they are tending."

— More, Hannah (1745-1833)

Date: 1777

"A woman, who possesses this quality, has received a most dangerous present, perhaps not less so than beauty itself: especially it it be not sheathed in a temper peculiarly inoffensive, chastised by a most correct judgment, and restrained by more prudence than falls to the common lot."

— More, Hannah (1745-1833)

Date: 1777

"I will even go so far as to assert, that a young woman cannot have any real greatness of soul, or true elevation of principle, if she has not a tincture of what the vulgar would call Romance, but which persons of a certain way of thinking will discern to proceed from those fine feelings, and tha...

— More, Hannah (1745-1833)

Date: 1777

"The most pointed satire I remember to have read, on a mind enslaved by anger, is an observation of Seneca's."

— More, Hannah (1745-1833)

Date: 1777

"But the heart, that natural seat of evil propensities, that little troublesome empire of the passions, is led to what is right by slow motions and imperceptible degrees."

— More, Hannah (1745-1833)

Date: 1777

"Its [the heart's] liveliest advances are frequently impeded by the obstinacy of prejudice, and its brightest promises often obscured by the tempests of passion."

— More, Hannah (1745-1833)

Date: 1777

"To an injudicious and superficial eye, the best educated girl may make the least brilliant figure, as she will probably have less flippancy in her manner, and less repartee in her expression; and her acquirements, to borrow bishop Sprat's idea, will be rather 'enamelled than embossed'."

— More, Hannah (1745-1833)

Date: 1777

"For the mind is an instrument, which, if wound too high, will lose its sweetness, and if not enough strained, will abate of its vigour."

— More, Hannah (1745-1833)

Date: 1777

"How cruel is it to extinguish by neglect or unkindness, the precious sensibility of an open temper, to chill the amiable glow of an ingenous soul, and to quench the bright flame of a noble and generous spirit!"

— More, Hannah (1745-1833)