The whole gamut of good and evil is in every human being, certain notes, from stronger original quality or most frequent use, appearing to form the whole character; but they are only the tones most often heard. The whole scale is in every soul, and the notes most seldom heard will on rare occasions make themselves audible.

Fanny Kemble

More Quotes by Fanny Kemble
Categorized in : Character Evil Soul
More Quotes From Fanny Kemble
I want to do everything in the world that can be done. by Fanny Kemble

I want to do everything in the world that can be done.

Fanny Kemble
done want world

The Southern newspapers, with their advertisements of negro sales and personal descriptions of fugitive slaves, supply details of misery that it would be difficult for imagination to exceed. Scorn, derision, insult, menace - the handcuff, the last - the tearing away of children from parents, of husbands from wives - the weary trudging in droves along the common highways, the labor of body, the despair of mind, the sickness of heart - these are the realities which belong to the system, and form the rule, rather that the exception, in the slave's experience.

Fanny Kemble
husband heart children

I have sometimes been haunted with the idea that it was an imperative duty, knowing what I know, and having seen what I have seen, to do all that lies in my power to show the dangers and the evils of this frightful institution.

Fanny Kemble
knowing fear lying

[When her husband said her earnings as a married woman belonged to him:] I cannot persuade myself that that which I invent - create, in fact - can belong to anyone but myself! I wish that women could be dealt with, not mercifully, not compassionately, nor affectionately, but justly; it would be so much better - for the men.

Fanny Kemble
husband wish men

[On disagreeing with her husband about his slave-holding:] I cannot give my conscience into the keeping of another human being or submit the actions dictated by my conscience to their will.

Fanny Kemble
husband action giving

A good many causes tend to make good masters and mistresses quite as rare as good servants.... The large and rapid fortunes by which vulgar and ignorant people become possessed of splendid houses, splendidly furnished, do not, of course, give them the feelings and manners of gentle folks, or in any way really raise them above the servants they employ, who are quite aware of this fact, and that the possession of wealth is literally the only superiority their employers have over them.

Fanny Kemble
house giving people
When marriage is what it ought to be, it is indeed the very happi... by Fanny Kemble

When marriage is what it ought to be, it is indeed the very happiest condition of existence.

Fanny Kemble
ought existence marriage

...I cannot help being astonished at the furious and ungoverned execration which all reference to the possibility of a fusion of the races draws down upon those who suggest it, because nobody pretends to deny that, throughout the South, a large proportion of the population is the offspring of white men and colored women.

Fanny Kemble
white-man race men
A sacred burden is this life ye bear, by Fanny Kemble

A sacred burden is this life ye bear,

Fanny Kemble
failure winning life
Modesty is a diamond setting to female beauty. by Fanny Kemble

Modesty is a diamond setting to female beauty.

Fanny Kemble
modesty female diamond
Simplicity is a great element of good breeding. by Fanny Kemble

Simplicity is a great element of good breeding.

Fanny Kemble
breeding simplicity elements
... it's always determined characters who make the greatest fools... by Fanny Kemble

... it's always determined characters who make the greatest fools.

Fanny Kemble
fool determined character
What shall I do with all the days and hours by Fanny Kemble

What shall I do with all the days and hours

Fanny Kemble
letting-go missing-you i-miss-you

An actor's life is the shadow of a cloud, the echo of a sound, the memory of a dream, nothing come of nothing. The finest actor does not create, he is but a translator of another man's work.

Fanny Kemble
dream men memories

Better trust all, and be deceived, And weep that trust and that deceiving, Than doubt one heart, that if believed Had blessed one's life with true believing.

Fanny Kemble
blessed believe lying

[On John Brown:] The poor wretch is hanged, but from his grave a root of bitterness will spring, the fruit of which at no distant day may be disunion and civil war.

Fanny Kemble
roots spring war

American gentlemen are a cross between English and French men, and yet really altogether like neither. They are more refined and modest than Frenchmen, and less manly, shy, and rough, than Englishmen. Their brains are finer and flimsier, their bodies less robust and vigorous than ours. We are the finer animals, and they the subtler spirits. Their intellectual tendency is to excitement and insanity, and ours to stagnation and stupidity.

Fanny Kemble
stupidity animal men
Those that we love never alter, unless we cease to love them. by Fanny Kemble

Those that we love never alter, unless we cease to love them.

Fanny Kemble
cease

The death I should prefer would be to break my neck off the back of a good horse at a full gallop on a fine day.

Fanny Kemble
horse would-be death

cultivate in young minds an equal love of the good, the beautiful and the absurd; most people's lives are too lead-colored to lose the smallest twinkle of light from a flash of nonsense.

Fanny Kemble
light education beautiful