Richard Jefferies

“Every woman likes her own way, but no woman can endure to see another woman master even over a man who does not concern her.”

“It would seem that the ant works its way tentatively, and, observing where it fails, tries another place and succeeds.”

“There are people in this servile world who will endure any trampling, and at the first beck rush delightedly to proffer their assistance.”

“Almost every labourer has his Sunday suit, very often really good clothes, sometimes glossy black, with the regulation 'chimney pot'. His unfortunate walk betrays him, dress how he will.”

“No tyrant, however evil, has yet lacked ready hands to execute his most abominable will. To read how eagerly men have rushed to serve the despot is the bitterest, the saddest matter of histo...”

“To the darkness and the night, the spirits seem to have a natural claim - it is their realm; the boldest of us have sometimes felt an unaccountable creeping in the thick darkness.”

“Grief falls upon human beings as the rain, not selecting good or evil, visiting the innocent, condemning those who have done no wrong.”

“The 'crownd' is still the unit, the favourite coin of the labourers, especially the elder folk. They use the word something in the same sense as the dollar, and look with regret upon the gra...”

“The cottages erected by farmers or by landlords are now, one and all, fit and proper habitations for human beings; and I verifly believe it would be impossible throughout the length and brea...”

“An inspiration - a long, deep breath of the pure air of thought - could alone give health to the heart.”

“Look at another person while living; the soul is not visible, only the body which it animates. Therefore, merely because after death the soul is not visible is no demonstration that it does...”

“Many labourers can trace their descent from farmers or well-to-do people, and it is not uncommon to find here and there a man who believes that he is entitled to a large property in Chancery...”

“Ever since the world began, it has been the belief of mankind that desolate places are the special haunt of supernatural beings.”

“Science, as illustrated by the printing press, the telegraph, the railway, is a double-edged sword. At the same moment that it puts an enormous power in the hands of the good man, it also of...”

“The workman in the true sense of the word - the artist in guns - is either extinct, or hidden in an obscure corner. There is no individuality about modern guns. One is exactly like another.”

“A man, to read, must read alone. He may make extracts, he may work at books in company; but to read, to absorb, he must be solitary.”

“A kestrel can and does hover in the dead calm of summer days, when there is not the faintest breath of wind. He will, and does, hover in the still, soft atmosphere of early autumn, when the...”

“The old Greeks dwelt on the tendency of human affairs to drift downwards irresistibly to unhappiness. Guilt - that is, untoward and often involuntary actions - pulls generation after generat...”

“I believe in the human form; let me find something, some method, by which that form may achieve the utmost beauty.”

“The labourer's muscle is that of a cart-horse, his motions lumbering and slow.”