“Thee will find out in time that I have a great love of professing vile sentiments, I don’t know why, unless it springs from long efforts to avoid priggery.”

Letter to Alys Pearsall Smith (1894). Smith was a Quaker, thus the archaic use of "Thee" in this and other letters to her.
1890s

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Sept. 29, 2023. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Thee will find out in time that I have a great love of professing vile sentiments, I don’t know why, unless it springs …" by Bertrand Russell?
Bertrand Russell photo
Bertrand Russell 562
logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and politi… 1872–1970

Related quotes

Anne Brontë photo

“Adoration isn’t love. I adore Annabella, but I don’t love her; and I love thee, Milicent, but I don’t adore thee.”

Source: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848), Ch. XXXII : Comparisons: Information Rejected; Ralph to Milicent

Jules Dupré photo

“You think then, that I know my profession? Why, my poor fellow; if I had nothing more to find out and to learn I could not paint any longer.”

Jules Dupré (1811–1889) French painter

as quoted by Albert Wolff, 1880's, in Notes upon certain masters of the XIX century, - printed not published MDCCCLXXXVI (1880's), The Art Age Press, 400 N.Y. (written after the exhibition 'Cent Chefs-d'Oeuvres: the Choiche of the French Private Galleries', Petit, Paris / Baschet, New York, 1883, p. 36
Dupré is responding in this quote to a purchaser who was teasing him to finish a picture only in a few hours. Dupré replied in the presence of Albert Wolff

Margaret Atwood photo
Pat Conroy photo

“I do not love thee, Doctor Fell,
The reason why I cannot tell;
But this alone I know full well,
I do not love thee, Doctor Fell.”

Thomas Brown (1662–1704) English translator and writer of satire

Laconics, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919). A slightly different version is found in Brown's Works collected and published after his death. Compare: "Non amo te, Sabidi, nec possum dicere quare; Hoc tantum possum dicere, non amo te" (translation: "I do not love thee, Sabidius, nor can I say why; this only I can say, I do not love thee"), Martial, Epigram i. 33; "Je ne vous aime pas, Hylas; Je n'en saurois dire la cause, Je sais seulement une chose; C'est que je ne vous aime pas", Marquis de Bussy-Castelnau, Comte de Rabutin (1618–1693).
Source: See,Talk discussion

Rebecca West photo

“I myself have never been able to find out what feminism is; I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat or a prostitute.”

Rebecca West (1892–1983) British feminist and author

"Mr. Chesterton in Hysterics," in The Clarion, (14 November 1913), re-published in The Young Rebecca: Writings of Rebecca West, 1911-17 (1982), p. 219.
Variant: I myself have never been able to find out what feminism is; I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat or a prostitute.
Source: Young Rebecca: Writings, 1911-1917

Abraham Lincoln photo

“I have never had a feeling politically that did not spring from the sentiments embodied in the Declaration of Independence.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

1860s, Speech in Independence Hall (1861)
Context: I have never had a feeling politically that did not spring from the sentiments embodied in the Declaration of Independence. I have often pondered over the dangers which were incurred by the men who assembled here and adopted that Declaration of Independence; I have pondered over the toils that were endured by the officers and soldiers of the army, who achieved that Independence. I have often inquired of myself, what great principle or idea it was that kept this Confederacy so long together. It was not the mere matter of the separation of the colonies from the mother land; but something in that Declaration giving liberty, not alone to the people of this country, but hope to the world for all future time. It was that which gave promise that in due time the weights should be lifted from the shoulders of all men, and that all should have an equal chance. This is the sentiment embodied in that Declaration of Independence.

Samuel Johnson photo

“From Thee, great God: we spring, to Thee we tend,
Path, motive, guide, original, and end.”

Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) English writer

Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 257

Related topics