Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotes by Katherine Mansfield (British Author)

Kathleen Mansfield Beauchamp (1888–1923,) who wrote under the pseudonym Katherine Mansfield, was a New Zealand-born British short-story writer. Before her premature death from tuberculosis, Mansfield became the master of the short-story form. Her tales range from extended impressionistic evocations of family life to short sketches.

Born in Wellington, she was educated at Queen’s College, London. She returned briefly to New Zealand to study music, then came back to London to pursue a literary career. Until 1914, she published stories in Rhythm and The Blue Review, edited by the critic and essayist John Middleton Murry, whom she married in 1918.

Mansfield is noted for her short stories that focus on psychological conflicts and feature themes related to women’s lives and social hierarchies. Mansfield first achieved recognition with the story collections Bliss (1920) and The Garden Party (1922.)

Posthumous collections include The Dove’s Nest (1923) and Something Childish and Other Stories (1924; also The little Girl and Other Stories, 1924,) the compilation of critical essays Novels and Novelists (1930,) and Poems of Katherine Mansfield (1988.) Her work for the theatre was collected in Katherine Mansfield: Dramatic Sketches (1988.)

More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Katherine Mansfield

The more you are motivated by love, the more fearless and free your actions will be.
—Katherine Mansfield
Topics: Love, Fear

I am treating you as my friend, asking you to share my present minuses in the hope I can ask you to share my future pluses.
—Katherine Mansfield
Topics: Feelings, Friendship, Friends

It’s a terrible thing to be alone—yes it is—it is—but don’t lower your mask until you have another mask prepared beneath—as terrible as you like—but a mask.
—Katherine Mansfield
Topics: Loneliness

I really only have Perfect Fun with myself. Other people won’t stop and look at the things I want to look at or, if they do, they stop to please me or to humor me or to keep the peace.
—Katherine Mansfield
Topics: Solitude

There are in life as many aspects as attitudes towards it; and aspects change with attitudes… Could we change our attitude, we should not only see life differently, but life itself would come to be different. Life would undergo a change of appearance because we ourselves had undergone a change in attitude.
—Katherine Mansfield
Topics: Attitude, Living, Life, Optimism, Perception, Positive Attitudes

Looking back, I imagine I was always writing. Twaddle it was too. But better far write twaddle or anything, anything, than nothing at all.
—Katherine Mansfield
Topics: Writing

The mind I love must have wild places, a tangled orchard where dark damsons drop in the heavy grass, an overgrown little wood, the chance of a snake or two, a pool that nobody’s fathomed the depth of, and paths threaded with flowers planted by the mind.
—Katherine Mansfield
Topics: Mind

Make it a rule of life never to regret and never to look back. Regret is an appalling waste of energy; you can’t build on it; it’s only good for wallowing in.
—Katherine Mansfield
Topics: Regret, The Present, Moving on, Remorse, Repentance, Disappointment

Would you not like to try all sorts of lives—one is so very small—but that is the satisfaction of writing—one can impersonate so many people.
—Katherine Mansfield
Topics: Authors & Writing, Fiction

I always felt that the great high privilege, relief and comfort of friendship was that one had to explain nothing.
—Katherine Mansfield
Topics: Candor, Friendship, Friends

Life never becomes a habit to me. It’s always a marvel.
—Katherine Mansfield
Topics: Life, Living

If only one could tell true love from false love as one can tell mushrooms from toadstools.
—Katherine Mansfield
Topics: Love

The pleasure of all reading is doubled when one lives with another who shares the same books.
—Katherine Mansfield
Topics: Books, Reading, Friendship, Literature

To work—to work! It is such infinite delight to know that we still have the best things to do.
—Katherine Mansfield
Topics: Work

I want, by understanding myself, to understand others. I want to be all that I am capable of becoming.
—Katherine Mansfield
Topics: Identity, Excellence, Doing Your Best, Self-Knowledge

Risk! Risk anything! Care no more for the opinion of others, for those voices. Do the hardest thing on earth for you. Act for yourself. Face the truth.
—Katherine Mansfield
Topics: Risk, Risk-taking, Opinions, Courage, Truth

Everything in life that we really accept undergoes a change. So suffering must become love. That is the mystery.
—Katherine Mansfield
Topics: Suffering, Acceptance, Pain, Change

To learn, to desire, to know, to feel, to think, to act. That is what I want. And nothing less.
—Katherine Mansfield

When we can begin to take our failures non-seriously, it means we are ceasing to be afraid of them. It is of immense importance to learn to laugh at ourselves.
—Katherine Mansfield
Topics: Failure, Mistakes, Failures

We can do whatever we wish to do provided our wish is strong enough. But the tremendous effort needed – one doesn’t always want to make it – does one? … But what else can be done? What’s the alternative? What do you want most to do? That’s what I have to keep asking myself, in the face of difficulties.
—Katherine Mansfield
Topics: Dedication, Endurance, Perseverance, Goals, Resolve, Motivation, Commitment, Aspirations

Wondering Whom to Read Next?

Comments

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *