Jan Struther Quotes

37 Sourced Quotes

To visit a new country for the first time is great fun; but it is even greater fun to introduce somebody else to a country that you know.

Jan Struther
Private opinion creates public opinion. Public opinion overflows eventually into national behaviour and national behaviour, as things are arranged at present, can make or mar the world. That is why private opinion, and private behaviour, and private conversation are so terrifyingly important.

Jan Struther
I can't abide cats myself, but of course we have to have one in the kitchen to deal with the mice. I insisted on getting a black one, because anything else shows the dirt so in London.

Jan Struther
Words were the only net to catch a mood, the only sure weapon against oblivion.

Jan Struther
To be entirely at leisure for one day is to be for one day an immortal.

Jan Struther
Nature has decreed that for what men suffer by having to shave, be killed in battle, and eat the legs of chickens, women make amends by housekeeping, childbirth, and writing all the letters for both of them.

Jan Struther
When a knight won his spurs, in the stories of old,
He was gentle and brave, he was gallant and bold.

Jan Struther
Days were the units which mattered most, being divided from each other by the astounding phenomenon of losing and regaining consciousness. (How brave, how trustful people are, to dare to go to sleep!)

Jan Struther
Librarianship is one of the few callings in the world for which is it still possible to feel unqualified admiration and respect.

Jan Struther
[List making] is inexpensive, harmless to other people, and not dependent upon your age or your income.

Jan Struther
The worst of gardening is that it's so full of metaphors one hardly knows where to begin.

Jan Struther
One day my life will end; and lest
Some whim should prompt you to review it,
Let her who knows the subject best
Tell you the shortest way to do it;
Then say, 'Here lies one doubly blest.'
Say: 'She was happy.' Say: 'She knew it.'

Jan Struther
To be put down in this world, and given only eighty years to get to know it in, is like being let loose in the United States of America for the first time with a high-powered car and unlimited gasoline — but with a visa that is valid for only a week. It's agonizing, that's what it is.

Jan Struther
[Gardening] is a means by which you can attain many valuable hours of solitude without being thought unsociable.

Jan Struther
Swans... always look as though they'd just been reading their own fan-mail.

Jan Struther
The importance of the ordinary citizen is very greatly underestimated — not so much by those in authority as by the ordinary citizen himself.

Jan Struther
The blind heart is worse than the blind eye,
And the half-truth more dangerous than the lie.

Jan Struther
Things happen too quickly, crisis follows crisis, the soil of our minds is perpetually disturbed. Each of us, to relieve his feelings, broadcasts his own running commentary on the preposterous and bewildering events of the hour: and this, nowadays, is what passes for conversation.

Jan Struther
There is practically no difference at all between a family and a nation, except the difference in size. A family is a nation seen through the wrong end of a telescope; a nation is a family seen through the right end of a telescope, and I don't believe it is possible to achieve a happy and successful family life, or a happy and successful national life, unless we bear this simple fact in mind and behave accordingly.

Jan Struther
When there is a world scarcity of any commodity, whether it's food or free speech, then the whole world must go on rations in order that eventually the whole world may have it again in plenty.

Jan Struther
It seemed to her sometimes that the most important thing about marriage was not a home or children or a remedy against sin, but simply there being always an eye to catch.

Jan Struther
In childhood the daylight always fails too soon — except when there are going to be fireworks;

Jan Struther
'One is what one remembers: no more, no less.' I thought that was true when I wrote it, but I see now that it is only half of the truth. One is partly what one remembers, and partly what one is planning for.

Jan Struther
Now heaven be thanked, I am out of love again!
I have been long a slave, and now am free;

Jan Struther
The chrysanthemums... were the big mop-headed kind, burgundy-coloured, with curled petals; their beauty was noble, architectural.

Jan Struther
It took me forty years on earth
To reach this sure conclusion:
There is no Heaven but clarity,
No Hell except confusion.

Jan Struther
She noted with delight that he really did say "Ha!" This made a valuable addition to her collection. She had lately acquired a "Humph!" and two "Whews!" but she was still waiting in vain for a "Pshaw!"

Jan Struther
Lord of all hopefulness, Lord of all joy,
Whose trust, ever childlike, no cares could destroy,
Be there at our waking, and give us, we pray,
Your bliss in our hearts, Lord, at the break of the day.

Jan Struther
The great thing, perhaps was not to be too successful too young.

Jan Struther
Until we have done everything we can to make the whole world into a home fit for all men, women and children to live in, we have not earned the right to enjoy our own fireside.

Jan Struther