Mary Abigail Dodge

“Essays by Gail Hamilton at Quotidiana.org”

“{{gutenberg author| id=Gail_Hamilton | name=Gail Hamilton}}”

“The total depravity of inanimate things.”

“Man has subdued the world, but woman has subdued man. Mind and muscle have won his victories; love and loveliness have gained hers. No monarch has been so great, no peasant so lowly, that he has not been glad to lay his best at the feet of a woman.”

“Men as yet need some help to their imagination. There remains still room for a little illusion. It is better for men, it is better for women, that each somewhat idealize the other. Much is lost when life has lost its atmosphere, and is reduced to naked facts.”

“Man pays deference to woman instinctively, involuntarily, not because she is beautiful, or truthful, or wise, or foolish, or proper, but because she is woman, and he can not help it. If she descends, he will lower to her level; if she rises, he will rise to her height.”

“Indeed, there is generally no such thing as duty to the people who really do it. They simply take life as it comes, meeting, not shirking, its demands, whether pleasant or unpleasant; and that is pretty much all there is of it.”

“Genius is expansive, irresistible, and irresistibly expansive. If it is in you, no cords can confine it.”

“Every person is responsible for all the good within the scope of his abilities, and for no more,—and none can tell whose sphere is the largest.”

“Whatever an author puts between the two covers of his book is public property; whatever of himself he does not put there is his private property, as much as if he had never written a word.”

“Christ made no distinction, but opened the door wide to woman as to man.”

“Love me, and tell me so sometimes.”

“It is the crushed grape that gives out the blood-red wine. It is the suffering soul that breathes the sweetest melodies.”