Fanny Kemble Quotes

Quotes about:

Desire Giving Husband

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

Fanny Kemble

Done, World, Want

Fanny Kemble (1835). “Journal”, p.82

47 Copy quote
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

Fear, Lying, Knowing

Fanny Kemble (1961). “Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation in 1838-1839”, p.44, University of Georgia Press

16 Copy quote
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, Children, Heart

Fanny Kemble (1961). “Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation in 1838-1839”, p.6, University of Georgia Press

18 Copy quote
[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, Men, Wish

15 Copy quote
A sacred burden is this life ye bear,
Look on it, lift it, bear it solemnly,
Stand up and walk beneath it steadfastly;
Fail not for sorrow, falter not for sin,
But onward, upward, till the goal ye win.

Fanny Kemble

Life, Failure, Winning

27 Copy quote
[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, Giving, Action

12 Copy quote
Though the Negroes are fed, clothed, and housed, and though the Irish peasant is starved, naked, and roofless, the bare name of freemen-the lordship over his own person, the power to choose and will-are blessings beyond food, raiment, or shelter; possessing which, the want of every comfort of life is yet more tolerable than their fullest enjoyment without them.

Fanny Kemble

Blessing, Names, Comfort

Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation, ch. 1, 1863.

4 Copy quote
...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

Men, Race, White Man

Fanny Kemble (1863). “Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation in 1838-1839”, p.14

11 Copy quote
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

People, Giving, House

Fanny Kemble (1890). “Further Records, 1848-1883: A Series of Letters, Forming a Sequel to Record of a Girlhood, and Records of Later Life”

10 Copy quote
In the north we could not hope to keep the worst and poorest servant for a single day in the wretched discomfort in which our negro servants are forced habitually to live.

Fanny Kemble

Worst, Servant, Discomfort

Fanny Kemble (1961). “Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation in 1838-1839”, p.101, University of Georgia Press

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

Fanny Kemble

Character, Fool, Determined

Fanny Kemble, Fanny Kemble Wister (1972). “Fanny, the American Kemble: her journals and unpublished letters”

9 Copy quote
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

Character, Evil, Soul

4 Copy quote
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, Memories, Men

9 Copy quote
They frequently find the truth who do not seek it, they who do, frequently lose it.

Fanny Kemble

Truth, Loses

Fanny Kemble (1890). “Further Records, 1848-1883: A Series of Letters”

7 Copy quote
Christmas is a season of such infinite labour, as well as expense in the shopping and present-making line, that almost every woman I know is good for nothing in purse and person for a month afterwards, done up physically, and broken down financially.

Fanny Kemble

Christmas, Shopping, Broken

Fanny Kemble (1890). “Further Records, 1848-1883: A Series of Letters, Forming a Sequel to Record of a Girlhood, and Records of Later Life”

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

Fanny Kemble

Marriage, Existence, Ought

Fanny Kemble, Fanny Kemble Wister (1972). “Fanny, the American Kemble: her journals and unpublished letters”

10 Copy quote
[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

Spring, War, Roots

8 Copy quote
children are made of eyes and ears, and nothing, however minute, escapes their microscopic observation.

Fanny Kemble

Children, Eye, Ears

Fanny Kemble (1863). “Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation in 1838-1839”, p.22

4 Copy quote
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

Animal, Men, Stupidity

Fanny Kemble (1890). “Further Records, 1848-1883: A Series of Letters”

12 Copy quote
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

Beautiful, Education, Light

7 Copy quote
Modesty is a diamond setting to female beauty.

Fanny Kemble

Female, Modesty, Diamond

7 Copy quote
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

Lying, Believe, Blessed

Fanny Kemble (1844). “Poems”, p.111

6 Copy quote
Simplicity is a great element of good breeding.

Fanny Kemble

Simplicity, Elements, Breeding

Fanny Kemble (1890). “Further Records, 1848-1883: A Series of Letters, Forming a Sequel to Record of a Girlhood, and Records of Later Life”

9 Copy quote
I am persuaded that we are all surrounded by an atmosphere - a separate, sensitive, distinct envelope extending some distance from our visible persons - and whenever my invisible atmosphere is invaded, it affects my whole nervous system. The proximity of any bodies but those I love best is unendurable to my body.

Fanny Kemble

Distance, Love Is, Atmosphere

7 Copy quote
Politics of all sorts, I confess, are far beyond my limited powers of comprehension. Those of this country as far as I have been able to observe, resolve themselves into two great motives. The aristocratic desire of elevation and separation, and the democratic desire of demolishing and levelling.

Fanny Kemble

Country, Two, Desire

Fanny Kemble (1835). “Journal of a Residence in America”, p.95

5 Copy quote

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Born: November 27, 1809
Died: January 15, 1893
Occupation: Writer
Cite this Page: Citation

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