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Every right and natural responsibility of which you relieve a man, taking it on yourself, makes him less able to bear those responsibilities that nothing can relieve him of. If you could take all his duties from him, as we sometimes do, it would only make it certain that he would not then even do his duty by himself.

— Jean Ingelow Sarah de Berenger: A Novel (1879)

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More quotes by Jean Ingelow

Man dwells apart, though not alone,
He walks among his peers unread;
The best of thoughts which he hath known,
For lack of listeners are not said.

Poems (1863)

Is there never a chink in the world above
Where they listen for words from below?

Poems (1863)

There is nothing so unreasonable as infancy, excepting the maturer stages of life.

Fated to Be Free: A Novel (1875)

If one cannot have success, the next most agreeable thing is failure.

John Jerome: His Thoughts and Ways (1886)

I have lived to thank God that all my prayers have not been answered.

Off the Skelligs: A Novel (1872)

All Jean Ingelow quotes →

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Jean Ingelow (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.