Top quotes by Miles Franklin

When all is said and done, friendship is the only trustworthy fabric of the affections. So-called LOVE is a delirious inhuman state of mind: when hot it substitutes indulgence for fair play; when cold it is cruel, but friendship is warmth in cold, firm ground in a bog. Votes: 16

Bravely you jog along with the rope of class distinction drawing closer, close, tighter, tighter around you... I see it and know it, but I cannot help you... I am only an unnecessary, little, bush commoner, I am only a - woman. Votes: 9

In the career of a prodigy there invariably comes a time when it is compelled to relinquish being very clever for a child, and has to enter the business of life in competition with adults. Votes: 6

It is a wise provision that youth cannot see what it owes the previous generation. This is a chicken that comes back to roost in heavier years. Votes: 5

Ah, the bitter, hopeless heart-hunger of godlessness none but an atheist can understand! Votes: 3

Cowards always drag in the Bible to back theirselves up far more than proper people does ... Votes: 3

Grandpa ... was ever ready to cheer and help me, ever sure that I was a remarkable specimen. He was a dear old man who asked little from life and got less. Votes: 3

Heed the spark or you may dread the fire ... Votes: 3

My mother is a good woman - a very good woman - and I am, I think, not quite all criminality, but we do not pull together. I am a piece of machinery which, not understanding, my mother winds up the wrong way, setting all the wheels of my composition going in creaking discord. Votes: 2

Someone to tell it to is one of the fundamental needs of human beings. Votes: 2

there is a law of retribution in all things, direct or indirect, visible or invisible. Votes: 2

Civilization, stretching up to recognize that every child is a portion of State wealth, may presently make some movement to recognize maternity as a business or office needing time and strength, not as a mere passing detail thrown in among mountains of other slavery. Votes: 2

I don't believe there is a God", I said fiercely, "and if there is, He's not the merciful being He's always depicted, or He wouldn't be always torturing me for His own amusement. Votes: 1

Every now and again it would be considered wholesome for me to be more with people of my own age. Demotion to such company was a sapless exile. Their inanity was insufferable ... Votes: 0

... no problem except old age ever vanquished my mother. Votes: 0

... we each have our fleeting hour. Votes: 0

All is egotism. The only people whose mainspring is not egotism are the dead and perhaps idiots. Votes: 0

Before I was ten I became critical of the anthropomorphic God as interpreted in the churches. I did not warm to One thus revealed as the semblance of a bullying and mean old man who must have all his own way, be praised all the time and for attributes which were deplorable in us. Votes: 0

Girls! Girls! Those of you who have hearts, and therefore a wish for happiness, homes and husbands by and by, never develop a reputation for being clever. Votes: 0

I early became conscious that men breathe more audibly than women. Sit in a room in silence with men and women, and you can always hear the men breathing. Votes: 0

I never can see why they make such a fuss and get so frightened because wimmen does a thing or two now they usedn't to. Nothing short of a earthquake can make them not men an' wimmmen, an' that's the main thing. Votes: 0

If the souls of lives were voiced in music, there are some that none but a great organ could express, others the clash of a full orchestra, a few to which nought but the refined and exquisite sadness of a violin could do justice. Many might be likened unto common pianos, jangling and out of tune, and some to the feeble piping of a penny whistle, and mine could be told with a couple of nails in a rusty tin-pot. Votes: 0

I'm sure it's not any wish of mine that I'm born with inclinations for better things. If I could be born again, and had the designing of myself, I'd be born the lowest and coarsest-minded person imaginable, so that I could find plenty of companionship, or I'd be born an idiot, which would be better still. Votes: 0

It ain't what things actually are, it's all they stand for. Votes: 0

It is the highest form of culture and craftmanship in art to use local materials. That way you stand a chance of adding to culture. The other way you are in danger of merely imitating it ... Votes: 0

It's a sign of your own worth sometimes if you are hated by the right people. Votes: 0

Men always say there is no female Shakespeare.' 'Humph! You study the fellows who say that, and you'll see they are a long way from being Shakespeares themselves. Why shouldn't women have the same privilege? Votes: 0

Only a very small percentage can regard conditions from any but a selfish point of view or conceive of any but their own shoe-pinch. Votes: 0

Our greatest heart-treasure is a knowledge that there is in creation an individual to whom our existence is necessary - some one who is part of our life as we are part of theirs, some one in whose life we feel assured our death would leave a gap for a day or two. Votes: 0

the way to wean any one from a desire is not by condemnation of it. Votes: 0

There are only two kinds of parents. Those who think their offspring can do nothing wrong, and those who think they can do nothing right. Votes: 0

To grow up in intimate association with nature - animal and vegetable - is an irreplaceable form of wealth and culture. Votes: 0

What I absorbed from autobiographies was not how to be great so much as the littleness of the great. Votes: 0

Women can always think as much as they like, an' they could get up on a platform an' talk till they bust, as long as they didn't want the world to be made no better, an' they wouldn't be thought unwomanly. It's soon as a woman wants any practical good done that she is considered a unwomanly creature. Votes: 0