Isabella Beeton Quotes

• Afternoon tea should be provided, fresh supplies, with thin bread-and-butter, fancy pastries, cakes, etc., being brought in as other guests arrive.

  Isabella Beeton

  Cake, Tea, Afternoon

  48 Copy quote

• there should be a place for everything, and everything in its place.

  Isabella Beeton

  Order, Organization, Organized Life

  1861 The Book of Household Management, ch.2.

  10 Copy quote

• I have always thought that there is no more fruitful source of family discontent than a housewife's badly cooked dinners and untidy ways.

  Isabella Beeton

  Dinner, Way, Source

  1861 The Book of Household Management, preface.

  14 Copy quote

• Dine we must and we may as well dine elegantly as well as wholesomely.

  Isabella Beeton

  Food, Cooking, May

  Isabella Beeton, Nicola Humble (2008). “Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management: Abridged Edition”, p.366, Oxford University Press

  15 Copy quote

• The kitchen is the great laboratory of the household, and much of the 'weal and woe' as far as regards bodily health, depends on the nature of the preparations concocted within its walls.

  Isabella Beeton

  Wall, Food, Kitchen

  14 Copy quote

• Dining is the privilege of civilization. . . . The nation which knows how to dine has learnt the leading lesson of progress.

  Isabella Beeton

  Leadership, Civilization, Progress

  Isabella Beeton, Nicola Humble (2008). “Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management: Abridged Edition”, p.363, Oxford University Press

  14 Copy quote

• As in the fine arts, the progress of mankind from barbarism to civilisation is marked by a gradual succession of triumphs over the rude materialities of nature, so in the art of cookery is the progress gradual from the earliest and simplest modes, to those of the most complicated and refined.

  Isabella Beeton

  Art, Civilization, Rude

  Isabella Beeton, Nicola Humble (2008). “Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management: Abridged Edition”, p.57, Oxford University Press

  20 Copy quote

• It is to be regretted that domestication has seriously deteriorated the moral character of the duck. In a wild state, he is a faithful husband.....but no sooner is he domesticated than he becomes polygamous, and makes nothing of owning ten or a dozen wives at a time.

  Isabella Beeton

  Husband, Regret, Food

  12 Copy quote

• The half-hour before dinner has always been considered as the great ordeal through which the mistress, in giving a dinner-party, will either pass with flying colours, or lose many of her laurels.

  Isabella Beeton

  Party, Giving, Flying

  Isabella Beeton, Nicola Humble (2008). “Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management: Abridged Edition”, p.21, Oxford University Press

  13 Copy quote

• Frugality and economy are virtues without which no household can prosper. Whatever the income, waste of all kinds should be most sternly repressed ... Economy and frugality must never, however, be allowed to degenerate into meanness.

  Isabella Beeton

  Income, Waste, Degenerates

  12 Copy quote

• A good kitchen should be sufficiently remote from the principal apartments of the house, that the members, visitors, or guests of the family, may not perceive the odour incident to cooking, or hear the noise of culinary operations.

  Isabella Beeton

  House, Cooking, Kitchen

  Isabella Beeton (2000). “Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management: Abridged edition”, p.101, OUP Oxford

  4 Copy quote

• What moved me, in the first instance, to attempt a work like this, was the discomfort and suffering which I had seen brought upon men and women by household mismanagement. I have always thought that there is no more fruitful source of family discontent than a housewife's badly-cooked dinners and untidy ways.

  Isabella Beeton

  Men, Suffering, Dinner

  1861 The Book of Household Management, preface.

  9 Copy quote

• Spring is the usual period for house-cleaning and removing the dust and dirt which, notwithstanding all precautions, will accumulate during the winter months from dust, smoke, gas, etc.

  Isabella Beeton

  Spring, Winter, Dust

  14 Copy quote

• Fish is held out to be one of the greatest luxuries of the table and not only necessary, but even indispensable at all dinners where there is any pretence of excellence or fashion.

  Isabella Beeton

  Fashion, Luxury, Excellence

  9 Copy quote

• Pay, pay anything rather than go to law.

  Isabella Beeton

  Law, Pay

  Isabella Beeton, Nicola Humble (2008). “Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management: Abridged Edition”, p.562, Oxford University Press

  15 Copy quote

• It is true, says Liebeg, that thousands have lived without a knowledge of tea and coffee; and daily experience teaches us that, under certain circumstances, they may be dispensed with without disadvantage to the merely animal functions, but it is an error, certainly, to conclude from this that they may be altogether dispensed with in reference to their effects; and It is a question whether, if we had no tea and no coffee, the popular instinct would not seek for and discover the means of replacing them.

  Isabella Beeton

  Coffee, Mean, Animal

  Isabella Beeton (2006). “Mrs Beeton's Household Management”, p.825, Wordsworth Editions

  6 Copy quote

• The white Aylesbury duck is, and deservedly, a universal favourite. Its snowy plumage and comfortable comportment make it a credit to the poultry-yard, while its broad and deep breast, and its ample back, convey the assurance that your satisfaction will not cease at its death.

  Isabella Beeton

  Food, Ducks, White

  Isabella Beeton (2006). “Mrs Beeton's Household Management”, p.428, Wordsworth Editions

  4 Copy quote

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