Isabella Beeton Quotes

14 Sourced Quotes

A place for everything and everything in its place.

Isabella Beeton
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
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
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
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
Those learned in the law, when they do give advice without the usual fee, and in the confidence of friendship, generally say, 'Pay, pay anything rather than go to law;'...

Isabella Beeton
The housekeeper must consider herself as the immediate representative of her mistress, and bring, to the management of the household, all those qualities of honesty, industry, and vigilance, in the same degree as if she were at the head of her own family…Cleanliness, punctuality, order, and method, are essentials in the character of a housekeeper.

Isabella Beeton
We hear of those to whom a lawsuit is an agreeable relaxation, a gentle excitement. One of this class, when remonstrated with, retorted, that while one friend kept dogs, and another horses, he, as he had a right to do, kept a lawyer; and no one had a right to dispute his taste.

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

Isabella Beeton
Early rising is one of the most essential qualities which enter into good Household Management, as it is not only the parent of health, but of innumerable other advantages.

Isabella Beeton
Frugality and economy are home virtues, without which no household can prosper.

Isabella Beeton
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
Dine we must and we may as well dine elegantly as well as wholesomely.

Isabella Beeton