I am every day more convinced that we women, if we are to be good women, feminine and amiable and domestic, are not fitted to reign; at least it is they that drive themselves to the work which it entails.

When I think of a merry, happy, and free young girl - and look at the ailing aching state a young wife is generally doomed to - which you can't deny is the penalty of marriage.

Being pregnant is an occupational hazard of being a wife.

Everybody grows but me.

I would venture to warn against too great intimacy with artists as it is very seductive and a little dangerous.The important thing is not what they think of me, but what I think of them.

We are not interested in the possibilities of defeat. They do not exist.

Being married gives one one's position like nothing else can.

A marriage is no amusement but a solemn act, and generally a sad one.

I don't dislike babies, though I think very young ones rather disgusting.

I think people really marry far too much; it is such a lottery after all, and for a poor woman a very doubtful happiness.

For a man to strike any women is most brutal, and I, as well as everyone else, think this far worse than any attempt to shoot, which, wicked as it is, is at least more comprehensible and more courageous.

When I think of a merry, happy, free young girl - and look at the ailing, aching state a young wife generally is doomed to - which you can't deny is the penalty of marriage.

“He feels particularly ashamed if ever he is seen by his lovers to be invovled in something dishonourable.” 

“Evil is the vulgar lover who loves the body rather than the soul, inasmuch as he is not even stable, because he loves a thing which is in itself unstable, and therefore when the bloom of youth which he was desiring is over, he takes wing and flies away, in spite of all his words and promises; whereas the love of the noble disposition is life-long, for it becomes one with the everlasting.” 

“a life without investigation is not worth living” 

“Honesty is for the most part less profitable than dishonesty” 

“Knowledge becomes evil if the aim be not virtuous.” 

“Those who are too smart to engage in politics are punished by being governed by those who are dumber.” 

“Let parents then bequeath to their children not riches but the spirit of reverence.” 

“All learning has an emotional base.” 

“Man is a prisoner who has no right to open the door of his prison and run away... A man should wait, and not take his own life until God summons him.” 

“In order for man to succeed in life, God provided him with two means, education and physical activity. Not separately, one for the soul and the other for the body, but for the two together. With these means, man can attain perfection.” 

“I don't wait for inspiration. I'm not, in fact, quite sure what inspiration is, but I'm sure that if it is going to turn up, my having started work is the precondition of its arrival.” 

“I suppose that really I had a training or education not so very different from a lot of other artists and illustrators — it’s just that I didn’t have it in the normal order. When I was at school I liked drawing, and I liked anything to do with humor, and I liked writing too. When I was about fourteen, I was lucky enough to be introduced to a man who both painted pictures and drew cartoons for newspapers and magazines, including Punch, the most famous English humorous magazine at the time. He was called Alfred Jackson and every few months I would take him a collection of my drawings to look at. Now I look back and realize these were in fact lessons or tutorials, and what was especially good about them was that he talked not only about the cartoonists’ drawings in Punch at the time, but also about Michelangelo and Modigliani as well.” 

You see, I don't draw from life at all, but I do look out of my window a lot.

Television is kind of a disappointment. I often want to watch it, but I find it quite hard - I don't like soaps, reality TV or celebrity chefs.

I find that I can't work and listen to radio - either I find I don't like it and it distracts me, or I do like it and I want to listen to it.

I find that I can't work and listen to radio - either I find I don't like it and it distracts me, or I do like it and I want to listen to it.

I do like children, but only as people. Not as if they're a special category.

I've never quite worked out how to do holidays. I've got a house in France which I suppose is a kind of holiday house. But it's really only so I can go on drawing when I get there. I'm never far away from the feeling that I want to be getting on with something.

I know some children's writers write for specific children, or for the children they once were, but I never have. I just thought children might like my sort of visual humour.

It was an accident of circumstance that I never married.

“The most effective kind of education is that a child should play amongst lovely things.” 

“When the tyrant has disposed of foreign enemies by conquest or treaty and there is nothing to fear from them then he is always stirring up some wary or other in order that the people may require a leader.” 

“When there is an income tax, the just man will pay more and the unjust less on the same amount of income.” 

“Men of Athens, I honor and love you; but I shall obey God rather than you, and while I have life and strength I shall never cease from the practice and teaching of philosophy... Understand that I shall never alter my ways, not even if I have to die many times.” 

“Astronomy compels the soul to look upwards and leads us from this world to another.” 

“I have hardly ever known a mathematician who was capable of reasoning.” 

“Only a philosopher's mind grows wings, since its memory always keeps it as close as possible to those realities by being close to which the gods are divine.” 

“Those who don't know must learn from those who do.” 

NOT KNOWING IT WAS THE BEST AND LAST!!!” 

“According to Diotima, Love is not a god at all, but is rather a spirit that mediates between people and the objects of their desire. Love is neither wise nor beautiful, but is rather the desire for wisdom and beauty.” 

I don't think there's an illustrator who's as good as a Titian or a Rembrandt... but then, Rembrandt was a bit of an illustrator on the quiet, you know?

Well, one always has an instinct to be a painter, and I've done quite a lot of painting at one time or another, though not with any public success.

Guinea pigs are quite difficult to draw, I think, because they're so furry.

I'm trained as a teacher; that's the only thing I've got a certificate for.

I draw every day - unless I'm being interviewed.

Going to hospital is rather like going to an alien planet.

Being positive may be a character defect of mine.

I suppose illustration tends to live in the streets, rather than in the hermetically sealed atmosphere of the museum, and consequently it has come to be taken less seriously.