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if an author would have us feel a strong degree of compassion, his characters must not be too perfect.

Anna Letitia Barbauld

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Anna Letitia Barbauld
Age: 81 †
Born: 1743
Born: June 20
Died: 1825
Died: March 9
Essayist
Literary Critic
Poet
Leicestershire
England
Anna Laetitia Aiken
Anna Letitia Barbauld
Feels
Degrees
Would
Characters
Compassion
Perfect
Strong
Character
Feel
Author
Must
Degree

More quotes by Anna Letitia Barbauld

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Nobody ought to be too old to improve: I should be sorry if I was and I flatter myself I have already improved considerably by my travels. First, I can swallow gruel soup, egg soup, and all manner of soups, without making faces much. Secondly, I can pretty well live without tea.
Anna Letitia Barbauld
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Forgotten rimes, and college themes, Worm-eaten plans, and embryo schemes A mass of heterogeneous matter. A chaos dark, nor land nor water.
Anna Letitia Barbauld
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Englishmen are said to love their laws - that is the reason, I suppose, they give us so many of them, and in different editions.
Anna Letitia Barbauld
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Of her scorn the maid repented, And the shepherd - of his love.
Anna Letitia Barbauld
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Time deals gently with me and though I feel that I descend, the slope is easy.
Anna Letitia Barbauld
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We neither laugh alone, nor weep alone, why then should we pray alone?
Anna Letitia Barbauld
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We may think all religions beneficial, and believe of one alone that it is true.
Anna Letitia Barbauld
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It would be difficult to determine whether the age is growing better or worse for I think our plays are growing like sermons, and our sermons like plays.
Anna Letitia Barbauld
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The well taught philosophic mind To all compassion gives Casts round the world an equal eye, And feels for all that lives.
Anna Letitia Barbauld
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Say not 'Good-night' but in some brighter clime, bid me 'Good-morning.'
Anna Letitia Barbauld
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The dead of midnight is the noon of thought.
Anna Letitia Barbauld
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The awakenings of remorse, virtuous shame and indignation, the glow of moral approbation if they do not lead to action, grow less and less vivid every time they occur, till at length the mind grows absolutely callous.
Anna Letitia Barbauld
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Fair Venus shines Even in the eve of day, with sweetest beam Propitious shines, and shakes a trembling flood Of softened radiance from her dewy locks.
Anna Letitia Barbauld
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it is, in truth, the most absurd of all suppositions, that a human being can be educated, or even nourished and brought up, without imbibing numberless prejudices from every thing which passes around him.
Anna Letitia Barbauld
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So fades a summer cloud away So sinks the gale when storms are o'er So gently shuts the eye of day So dies a wave along the shore.
Anna Letitia Barbauld
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And when midst fallen London, they survey The stone where Alexander's ashes lay, Shall own with humbled pride the lesson must By Time's slow finger written in the dust.
Anna Letitia Barbauld
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When one by one our ties are torn, and friend from friend is snatched forlorn when man is left alone to mourn, oh! then how sweet it is to die!
Anna Letitia Barbauld
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we should contract our ideas of education, and expect no more from it than it is able to perform.
Anna Letitia Barbauld
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Young gentlemen, who are to display their knowledge to the world, should have every motive of emulation, should be formed into regular classes, should read and dispute together, should have all the honors, and, if one may say so, the pomp of learning set before them, to call up their ardor. It is their business, and they should apply to it as such.
Anna Letitia Barbauld
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Life! we've been long together Through pleasant and through cloudy weather Tis hard to part when friends are dear,- Perhaps 'twill cost a sigh, a tear. Then steal away, give little warning. Choose thine own time, Say not Good-night, but in some brighter clime, Bid me Good-morning.
Anna Letitia Barbauld