Top 65 Virginia Woolf Quotes (MRS. DALLOWAY)

Top 10 Most Famous Virginia Woolf Quotes (BEST)

If you do not tell the truth about yourself you cannot tell it about other people. — If you do not tell the **truth** about yourself you cannot tell it about other people.

I am not one and simple, but complex and many.

Nothing has really happened until it has been described.

One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well.

I would venture to guess that Anon, who wrote so many poems without signing them, was often a woman.

I am made and remade continually. Different people draw different words from me.

Why are women… so much more interesting to men than men are to women?

Lock up your libraries if you like; but there is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind. — Lock up your libraries if you like; but there is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the **freedom** of my mind.

Blame it or praise it, there is no denying the wild horse in us.

15 Inspirational Virginia Woolf Quotes About Life

“How much better is silence; the coffee cup, the table. How much better to sit by myself like the solitary sea-bird that opens its wings on the stake. Let me sit here for ever with bare things, this coffee cup, this knife, this fork, things in themselves, myself being myself.”
Virginia Woolf

No need to hurry. No need to sparkle. No need to be anybody but oneself.

I don’t believe in aging. I believe in forever altering one’s aspect to the sun.

You cannot find peace by avoiding life. — You cannot find **peace** by avoiding life.

Never pretend that the things you haven’t got are not worth having.

To enjoy freedom we have to control ourselves. — To enjoy **freedom** we have to control ourselves.

Sleep, that deplorable curtailment of the joy of life.

“Let us never cease from thinking — what is this ‘civilization’ in which we find ourselves? What are these ceremonies and why should we take part in them? What are these professions and why should we make money out of them?”
Virginia Woolf

Growing up is losing some illusions, in order to acquire others.

One likes people much better when they're battered down by a prodigious siege of misfortune than when they triumph. — One likes people much better when they’re battered down by a prodigious siege of misfortune than when they triumph.

Each had his past shut in him like the leaves of a book known to him by heart; and his friends could only read the title.

Some people go to priests; others to poetry; I to my friends. — Some people go to priests; others to **poetry**; I to my **friends**.

Rigid, the skeleton of habit alone upholds the human frame. — Rigid, the skeleton of **habit** alone upholds the human frame.

“What is the meaning of life? That was all- a simple question; one that tended to close in on one with years, the great revelation had never come. The great revelation perhaps never did come. Instead, there were little daily miracles, illuminations, matches struck unexpectedly in the dark; here was one.”
Virginia Woolf

6 Virginia Woolf Quotes on Thinking and the Human’s Brain

My own brain is to me the most unaccountable of machinery - always buzzing, humming, soaring roaring diving, and then buried in mud. And why? What's this passion for? — My own brain is to me the most unaccountable of machinery – always buzzing, humming, soaring roaring diving, and then buried in mud. And why? What’s this passion for?

What does the brain matter compared with the heart?

Yet it is in our idleness, in our dreams, that the submerged truth sometimes comes to the top. — Yet it is in our idleness, in our **dreams**, that the submerged **truth** sometimes comes to the top.

Mental fight means thinking against the current, not with it. It is our business to puncture gas bags and discover the seeds of truth. — Mental fight means thinking against the current, not with it. It is our business to puncture gas bags and discover the seeds of **truth**.

This soul, or life within us, by no means agrees with the life outside us. If one has the courage to ask her what she thinks, she is always saying the very opposite to what other people say. — This soul, or life within us, by no means agrees with the life outside us. If one has the **courage** to ask her what she thinks, she is always saying the very opposite to what other people say.

He who robs us of our dreams robs us of our life. — He who robs us of our **dreams** robs us of our life.

6 Virginia Woolf Quotes on Womanhood (FEMINISM)

As a woman I have no country. As a woman I want no country. As a woman, my country is the whole world.

As long as she thinks of a man, nobody objects to a woman thinking.

Women have served all these centuries as looking glasses possessing the magic and delicious power of reflecting the figure of man at twice its natural size.

It is fatal to be a man or woman pure and simple one must be a woman manly, or a man womanly. — It is fatal to be a man or woman pure and simple: one must be a woman manly, or a man womanly.

For most of history, Anonymous was a woman.

The truth is, I often like women. I like their unconventionality. I like their completeness. I like their anonymity.

7 Virginia Woolf Quotes on Love and Writing

Writing is like sex. First you do it for love, then you do it for your friends, and then you do it for money. — Writing is like sex. First you do it for **love**, then you do it for your **friends**, and then you do it for **money**.

Love, the poet said, is woman's whole existence. — **Love**, the poet said, is woman’s whole existence.

A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction. — A woman must have **money** and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.

Fiction is like a spider’s web, attached ever so lightly perhaps, but still attached to life at all four corners.

I meant to write about death, only life came breaking in as usual.

Yet, it is true, poetry is delicious; the best prose is that which is most full of poetry. — Yet, it is true, **poetry** is delicious; the best prose is that which is most full of poetry.

The telephone, which interrupts the most serious conversations and cuts short the most weighty observations, has a romance of its own.

2 Virginia Woolf Quotes on Fashion

“There is much to support the view that it is clothes that wear us, and not we, them; we may make them take the mould of arm or breast, but they mould our hearts, our brains, our tongues to their liking.”
Virginia Woolf

The connection between dress and war is not far to seek; your finest clothes are those you wear as soldiers.

19 Virginia Woolf Quotes that will Make You Think

“I can only note that the past is beautiful because one never realises an emotion at the time. It expands later, and thus we don’t have complete emotions about the present, only about the past.”
Virginia Woolf

The eyes of others our prisons; their thoughts our cages.

When you consider things like the stars, our affairs don't seem to matter very much, do they? — When you consider things like the stars, our affairs don’t seem to matter very much, do they?

All extremes of feeling are allied with madness.

The older one grows, the more one likes indecency.

The history of men's opposition to women's emancipation is more interesting perhaps than the story of that emancipation itself. — The history of men’s opposition to women’s emancipation is more interesting perhaps than the story of that emancipation itself.

The beauty of the world, which is so soon to perish, has two edges, one of laughter, one of anguish, cutting the heart asunder. — The **beauty** of the world, which is so soon to perish, has two edges, one of laughter, one of anguish, cutting the heart asunder.

We can best help you to prevent war not by repeating your words and following your methods but by finding new words and creating new methods.

It is far harder to kill a phantom than a reality.

“I will not be ‘famous’, ‘great’. I will go on adventuring, changing, opening my mind and my eyes, refusing to be stamped and stereotyped. The thing is to free one’s self: to let it find its dimensions, not be impeded.”
Virginia Woolf

Green in nature is one thing, green in literature another. Nature and letters seem to have a natural antipathy; bring them together and they tear each other to pieces. — Green in **nature** is one thing, green in literature another. Nature and letters seem to have a natural antipathy; bring them together and they tear each other to pieces.

One of the signs of passing youth is the birth of a sense of fellowship with other human beings as we take our place among them.

There was a star riding through clouds one night, & I said to the star, 'Consume me'. — There was a star riding through clouds one night, & I said to the star, ‘Consume me’.

It might be possible that the world itself is without meaning.

Humor is the first of the gifts to perish in a foreign tongue. — **Humor** is the first of the gifts to perish in a foreign tongue.

Literature is strewn with the wreckage of men who have minded beyond reason the opinions of others.

I thought how unpleasant it is to be locked out; and I thought how it is worse, perhaps, to be locked in.

Great bodies of people are never responsible for what they do. — Great bodies of people are never **responsible** for what they do.

“Time, unfortunately, though it makes animals and vegetables bloom and fade with amazing punctuality, has no such simple effect upon the mind of man. The mind of man, moreover, works with equal strangeness upon the body of time. An hour, once it lodges in the queer element of the human spirit, may be stretched to fifty or a hundred times its clock length; on the other hand, an hour may be accurately represented on the timepiece of the mind by one second.”
Virginia Woolf