Richard Jefferies Quotes

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.

- Richard Jefferies

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.

- Richard Jefferies

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 generation heavily as lead down, down, down.

- Richard Jefferies

The heart has a yearning for the unknown, a longing to penetrate the deep shadow and the winding glade, where, as it seems, no human foot has been.

- Richard Jefferies

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 history; it is the saddest sight in our own day.

- Richard Jefferies

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 gossamer falls in showers, coming straight down as if it were raining silk.

- Richard Jefferies

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

- Richard Jefferies

If every plant and flower were found in all places, the charm of locality would not exist. Everything varies, and that gives the interest.

- Richard Jefferies

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

- Richard Jefferies

Beauty - what is beauty, forsooth? Form and color; that is, surface only. Fortune - what is fortune? Nothing is ever a pleasure or a real profit to him who has to labour for it. Truth - you die in the pursuit, and the sea beats the beach as it did a thousand years ago. The stolid are alone happy.

- Richard Jefferies

Some, I verily believe, delight to be slave-men; it is a joy to them, and they would not change their condition; not only miserable village wretches, but men in good position, well-to-do sycophants.

- Richard Jefferies

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

- Richard Jefferies

The impression left after watching the motions of birds is that of extreme mobility - a life of perpetual impulse checked only by fear.

- Richard Jefferies

I desire a greatness of soul, an irradiance of mind, a deeper insight, a broader hope.

- Richard Jefferies

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.

- Richard Jefferies

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 offers an equal advantage to the evil disposed.

- Richard Jefferies

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 gradual disappearance of the broad silver disc with the figure of 'St. Gaarge' conquering the dragon.

- Richard Jefferies

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 breadth of Wiltshire to find a single bad cottage on any large estate, so well and so thoroughly have the landed proprietors done their work.

- Richard Jefferies

It is quite true that women like courage, and that boldness often goes a long way; but it is questionable whether with high-bred natures a subdued, quiet, and delicate manner does not go still further.

- Richard Jefferies

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

- Richard Jefferies

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

- Richard Jefferies

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, or elsewhere, as the heir.

- Richard Jefferies

When even the most strictly logical mind looks round and investigates the phenomena attending its own existence, perhaps the first fact to attract attention by its strongly marked prominence is the remarkable loneliness of man. He stands alone.

- Richard Jefferies

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.

- Richard Jefferies

To the soul, there is no past and no future; all is, and will be ever, in now. For artificial purposes time is mutually agreed on, but there is really no such thing.

- Richard Jefferies

Give me power of soul, so that I may actually effect by its will that which I strive for.

- Richard Jefferies

This sunlight linked me through the ages to that past consciousness.

- Richard Jefferies

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

- Richard Jefferies

A woman can see a woman so clearly - faluts, excellences, details - all are so clear to her.

- Richard Jefferies

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

- 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.

- Richard Jefferies

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 not still live.

- Richard Jefferies

Do you always do as you would like to do were it in your power? I find that circumstances force me often to act in a manner quite opposite to what I should prefer; I am, of course, judged by my acts, but do they really afford a true key to my character? I think not.

- Richard Jefferies

Is there anything so delicious as the first exploration of a great library - alone - unwatched?

- Richard Jefferies

It is easier to speak to those who have had similar experiences than to those who are as yet ignorant.

- Richard Jefferies

The lover of nature has the highest art in his soul.

- Richard Jefferies

It is injurious to the mind as well as to the body to be always in one place and always surrounded by the same circumstances.

- Richard Jefferies

That I may have the soul-life, the soul-nature, let divine beauty bring to me divine soul.

- Richard Jefferies

Now is eternity; now is the immortal life.

- Richard Jefferies

The heart looks into space to be away from earth.

- Richard Jefferies