I only care for the subjective life; I am very German, you see: The woods interest me, and the world does not.

— Ouida

Is there a more pitiable spectacle than that of a wife contending with others for that charm in her husband's sight which no philters and no prayers can renew when once it has fled forever? Women are so unwise. Love is like a bird's song beautiful and eloquent when heard in forest freedom, harsh and worthless in repetition when sung from behind prison bars. You cannot secure love by vigilance, by environment, by captivity. What use is it to keep the person of a man beside you if his soul be truant from you?

— Ouida

It is the north wind that lashes men into Vikings it is the soft luscious south wind which lulls them to lotus dreams.

— Ouida

Men are always optimists when they look inwards, and pessimists when they look around them.

— Ouida

One must pray first, but afterward one must help oneself. God does not care for cowards.--"Wanda

— Ouida

She was like a queen who beholds the virgin soil of her kingdom invaded and wasted by a traitor. Any other thing she would have pardoned: infidelity, indifference, cruelty, any sins of manhood's caprice or passion, but who should pardon this? The sin was not alone against herself; it was against every law of decency and truth that ever she had been taught to hold sacred; it was against all those great dead, who lay with the cross on their breasts and their swords by their side, from whom she had received and treasured the traditions of honor and purity of race. It was those dead knights whom he had smote upon the mouth and mocked, crying to them: 'Lo! Your place is mine; my sons will reign in your stead. I have tainted your race forever; for every blood flows with yours!' The greatness of a race is a thing far higher than mere pride. Its instincts are noble and supreme. Its obligations are no less than its privileges; it is a great light which streams backward through the darkness of the ages, and if by that light you guide not your footsteps, then are you thrice accursed, holding as you do that lamp of honor in your hands. So she had always thought, and now he had dashed the lamp in the dust.--"Wanda

— Ouida

Take hope from the heart of man and you make him a beast of prey.

— Ouida

The longest absence is less perilous to love than the terrible trials of incessant proximity.

— Ouida

There are wrongs for which religion makes no provision, and of which it has no comprehension.--"Wanda

— Ouida

The world never leaves one in ignorance or in peace.

— Ouida