Marmee March to Jo, in Ch. 8 : Jo Meets Apollyon
Little Women (1868)
Context: You think your temper is the worst in the world, but mine used to be just like it. … I've been trying to cure it for forty years, and have only succeeded in controlling it. I am angry nearly every day of my life, but I have learned not to show it; and I still try to hope not to feel it, though it may take me another forty years to do it. … I've learned to check the hasty words that rise to my lips, and when I feel that they mean to break out against my will, I just go away for a minute, and give myself a little shake for being so weak and wicked.
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Source: Little Women (1868), Ch. 41 : Learning To Forget
Context: When women are the advisers, the lords of creation don't take the advice till they have persuaded themselves that it is just what they intended to do. Then they act upon it, and, if it succeeds, they give the weaker vessel half the credit of it. If it fails, they generously give her the whole.
A Long Fatal Love Chase (1866)
“She is too fond of books, and it has turned her brain”
Variant: She is too fond of books, and it has turned her brain.
Source: Work: A Story of Experience
Variant: ... but, dear me, let us be elegant or die.
Source: Little Women
Source: The Abbot's Ghost: A Christmas Story
“It’s amazing how lovely common things become, if one only knows how to look at them.”
Source: Marjorie's Three Gifts
“Oh, Jo, how could you? Your one beauty.”
Source: Little Women
“I'm not afraid of storms, for I'm learning how to sail my ship.”
Amy, in Ch. 44 : My Lord and Lady
Variant: I am not afraid of storms for I am learning how to sail my ship.
Source: Little Women (1868)
As quoted in Elbert Hubbard's Scrap Book (1923) by Elbert Hubbard, p. 62
“Christmas won't be Christmas without any presents”
Source: Little Women (1868), Ch. 1 : Playing Pilgrims, First lines
Context: "Christmas won't be Christmas without any presents," grumbled Jo, lying on the rug.
"It's so dreadful to be poor!" sighed Meg, looking down at her old dress.
"I don't think it's fair for some girls to have plenty of pretty things, and other girls nothing at all," added little Amy, with an injured sniff.
"We've got Father and Mother, and each other," said Beth contentedly from her corner.
The four young faces on which the firelight shone brightened at the cheerful words, but darkened again as Jo said sadly, "We haven't got Father, and shall not have him for a long time." She didn't say "perhaps never," but each silently added it, thinking of Father far away, where the fighting was.