Flora Thompson Quotes

We cannot bring the good old days back but, if we must eat mass-made foods, get laws passed to insist upon its goodness and purity.

It was still the custom of the countryside to build with local materials produced as close to the selected site as possible, for transport was difficult, even the best of country roads being more fitted for horseback traffic rather than heavy loads.

Any artwork needs time and patience and needs above all a quiet mind.

Nature knows no calendar, the seasons move in a circle.

Some kind of contact with earth, however second hand or muffled, is still a prime necessity of humankind. We each of us have our own particular earthly paradise, a spot on earth for which our thoughts turn while our bodies are far distant, as the one place in all the world we would rather be..

and so the shadows ripple on
until it's time to part

Our poet's singing lips are dumb:
This his last gift, to us has brought
The pain pressed vintage of his thought
His life of song, his life of pain,
And, being dead, he speaks again.

Some great poet or philosopher once said that " he who goes to nature for comfort must go to her empty handed " , and I think he was right.

Unlike most great talkers, the rooks are good workers, too.

Now, with the glamour of the past upon them we are inclined to look back on old world festivities with regret and consider present day dances as a poor substitute for the old. From an artistic point of view, they maybe, but in individual freedom and independence of spirit they mark a stage upward.

Other days, other ways; and, although they have now been greatly improved upon, the old country midwives did at least succeed in bringing into the world many generations of our forefathers, or where should we be now? <small>— (ch. 8, 'The Box' )</small>

'Thank God for my good dinner. Thank Father and Mother. Amen' was the grace used in one family, and it certainly had the merit of giving credit where credit was due. <small>— (ch. 1, Poor People's Houses)</small>

No age can have everything and in material ways ours is more fortunate than any preceding one. Our ancestors appear to have mastered the art of living better than we are able to when an easy conscience, largely due to the unshaken faith of the time, left a marging of spiritual energy with which to enjoy life.

I do not compare the past with the present without a prejudice for either, but, great as the improvement in country life is in many respects, it seems a pity the old cheap, wholesome dishes have gone to make way for tinned and preserved foods.

Other days, other ways! For myself I would desire a combination of old romance and modern machinery. No housewife would wish to the return to the era when everything, had to be made at home by candlelight and which lost to us who knows how many women poets and painters!