Alice Duer Miller Quotes

Contempt is the weapon of the weak and a defense against one's own despised and unwanted feelings.

Genuine forgiveness does not deny anger but faces it head-on.

the strongest will is the will that knows how to bend.

In a world where England is finished and dead: I do not wish to live.

A child too, can never grasp the fact that the same mother who cooks so well, is so concerned about his cough, and helps so kindly with his homework, in some circumstance has no more feeling than a wall of his hidden inner world.

People love to talk but hate to listen.

Listening is not merely not talking, though even that is beyond most of our powers; it means taking a vigorous, human interest in what is being told us.

Love will not always linger longest with those who hold it in too clenched a fist.

It is among the commonplaces of education that we often first cut off the living root and then try to replace its natural functions by artificial means. Thus we suppress the child's curiosity and then when he lacks a natural interest in learning he is offered special coaching for his scholastic coaching for his scholastic difficulties.

Silences, as every observer knows, have strange characteristics all their own - passionate silences, and hateful silences, and silences full of friendly, purring content.

Conversation is a partnership, not a relation of master and slave, as most people try to make it.

Men are too emotional to vote. Their conduct at baseball games and political conventions shows this, while their innate tendency to appeal to force renders them particularly unfit for the task of government....Man's place is in the armory.

No one has ever explained why it is that parents and guardians consider dull people such safe matrimonial investments for their young charges. Even granting the unsound assumption that dull people are more apt to be content with their own matrimonial fetters, they are certainly more apt to be the cause of discontent in others.

People love to talk but hate to listen.

Listening is not merely not talking, though even that is beyond most of our powers; it means taking a vigorous, human interest in what is being told us. You can listen like a blank wall or like a splendid auditorium where every sound comes back fuller and richer.

And now too late, we see these things are one: The art is sacrifice and self-control And who loves beauty must be stern of soul.

It's been my experience, Charlotte, that the crisis never comes as or when you expect.

Hate is perhaps the most dynamic of all emotions - fear may immobilize, love may stay the hand, but hate urges to action.

Rare indeed is the nature that does not become a little more intense when its own affairs come under discussion.

If it's very painful for you to criticize your friends - you're safe in doing it. But if you take the slightest pleasure in it, that's the time to hold your tongue.

They make other nations seem pale and flighty, But they do think England is God almighty, And you must remind them now and then That other countries breed other men.

Don't ever dare to take your college as a matter of course - because, like democracy and freedom, many people you'll never know have broken their hearts to get it for you.

No one really believes in equality who's on top.

Men are too emotional to vote. Their conduct at baseball games and political conventions shows this . . .

It is always difficult for a woman to be grateful for a form of chivalry that seems to be based on the premise that she is a moron.

Good manners are the techniques of expressing consideration for the feelings of others.

When a woman like that whom I've seen so much, All of a sudden drops out of touch; Is always busy and never can, Spare you a moment, it means a man.