Quote

Kindness is a virtue neither modern nor urban. One almost unlearns it in a city. Towns have their own beatitude they are not unfriendly they offer a vast and solacing anonymity or an equally vast and solacing gregariousness. But one needs a neighbor on whom to practice compassion.

Phyllis McGinley

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Phyllis McGinley
Age: 72 †
Born: 1905
Born: March 21
Died: 1978
Died: February 22
Author
Poet
Writer
Ontario
Oregon
Phyllis McGinley
Almost
Kindness
Unlearn
Practice
Neither
Anonymity
Needs
Offers
Urban
Compassion
Equally
City
Vast
Cities
Offer
Gregariousness
Virtue
Neighbor
Beatitude
Modern
Towns
Unfriendly

More quotes by Phyllis McGinley

Image
Gossip isn't scandal and it's not merely malicious. It's chatter about the human race by lovers of the same.
Phyllis McGinley
Image
Time is the thief you cannot banish.
Phyllis McGinley
Image
A lady is smarter than a gentleman, maybe, she can sew a fine seam, she can have a baby, she can use her intuition instead of her brain, but she can't fold a paper in a crowded train.
Phyllis McGinley
Image
The knowingness of little girls, is hidden underneath their curls.
Phyllis McGinley
Image
Sometimes I have a notion that what might improve the situation is to have women take over the occupations of government and trade and to give men their freedom.
Phyllis McGinley
Image
If childhood is still a state, it is now chiefly a state of confusion.
Phyllis McGinley
Image
Marriage was all a woman's idea and for man's acceptance of the pretty yoke, it becomes us to be grateful.
Phyllis McGinley
Image
Behind every myth lies a truth beyond every legend is reality, as radiant (sometimes as chilling) as the story itself.
Phyllis McGinley
Image
Scratch any father, you find / Someone chock-full of qualms and romantic terrors, / Believing change is a threat.
Phyllis McGinley
Image
Ah, snug lie those that slumber Beneath Conviction's roof. Their floors are sturdy lumber, Their windows weatherproof. But I sleep cold forever And cold sleep all my kind, For I was born to shiver In the draft from an open mind.
Phyllis McGinley
Image
Frigidity is largely nonsense. It is this generation's catchword, one only vaguely understood and constantly misused. Frigid women are few. There is a host of diffident and slow-ripening ones.
Phyllis McGinley
Image
A bookworm in bed with a new novel and a good reading lamp is as much prepared for pleasure as a pretty girl at a college dance.
Phyllis McGinley
Image
Say what you will, making a marriage work is a woman's business.
Phyllis McGinley
Image
Gossip isn't scandal and it's not merely malicious. It's chatter about the human race by lovers of the same. Gossip is the tool of the poet, the shop-talk of the scientist, and the consolation of the housewife, wit, tycoon and intellectual. It begins in the nursery and ends when speech is past.
Phyllis McGinley
Image
Sin has always been an ugly word, but it has been made so in a new sense over the last half-century. It has been made not only ugly but pass?. People are no longer sinful, they are only immature or underprivileged or frightened or, more particularly, sick.
Phyllis McGinley
Image
In a successful marriage, there is no such thing as one's way. There is only the way of both, only the bumpy, dusty, difficult, but always mutual path.
Phyllis McGinley
Image
Say what you will, making marriage work is a woman's business. The institution was invented to do her homage it was contrived for her protection. Unless she accepts it as such --as a beautiful, bountiful, but quite unequal association --the going will be hard indeed.
Phyllis McGinley
Image
Mere wealth, I am above it, / It is the reputation wide, / The playwright's pomp, the poet's pride / That eagerly I covet.
Phyllis McGinley
Image
Cocktail parties ... are usually not parties at all but mass ceremonials designed to clear up at one great stroke a wealth of obligations.
Phyllis McGinley
Image
Tomorrow will come and today will pass, / But the hearts of the young are brittle as glass.
Phyllis McGinley