Here are the 33 best handpicked quotes from “A Little Princess” by Frances Hodgson Burnett:
From “Things happen to people by accident.” to “All women are princesses, it is our right.”
So if you want the best quotes from A Little Princess, then you’re in the right place.
Let’s jump right in!
My Favorite “A Little Princess” Quote
#1
“But I suppose there might be good in things, even if we don’t see it.”
— A Little Princess
I like how this quote highlights the idea that just when we think nothing is going our way, good things are still in store for us, even though we might not see or feel it.
It’s easy to lose hope when the situation we are in is not in our favor, but it won’t hurt to try and see things from different perspectives.
You may just find out that they are actually in our favor and may even produce an unexpected outcome that can enrich our lives in the long run; we just don’t feel like it is.
Best Handpicked Quotes From “A Little Princess” by Frances Hodgson Burnett
#2
“It’s true,” she said. “Sometimes I do pretend I am a princess. I pretend I am a princess, so that I can try and behave like one.”
— A Little Princess
#3
“It’s so easy that when you begin you can’t stop. You just go on and on doing it always.”
— A Little Princess
#4
“Things happen to people by accident.”
— A Little Princess
#5
“She says it has nothing to do with what you look like, or what you have. It has only to do with what you think of, and what you do.”
— A Little Princess
#6
“I don’t know who it is,” she said; “but somebody cares for me a little. I have a friend.”
— A Little Princess
#7
“Perhaps kind thoughts reach people somehow, even through windows and doors and walls. Perhaps you feel a little warm and comforted.”
— A Little Princess
#8
“If Sara had been a boy and lived a few centuries ago, her father used to say, ‘she would have gone about the country with her sword drawn, rescuing and defending everyone in distress. She always wants to fight when she sees people in trouble.”
— A Little Princess
#9
“The truth is that when one is still a child-or even if one is grown up- and has been well fed, and has slept long and softly and warm; when one has gone to sleep in the midst of a fairy story, and has wakened to find it real, one cannot be unhappy or even look as if one were; and one could not, if one tried, keep a glow of joy out of one’s eyes.”
— A Little Princess
#10
“Yes, answered Sara, nodding. Adversity tries people, and mine has tried you and proved how nice you are.”
— A Little Princess
#11
“All women are princesses, it is our right.”
— A Little Princess
#12
“I dare say it is rather hard to be a rat,” she mused. “Nobody likes you. People jump and run away and scream out: ‘Oh, a horrid rat!’ I shouldn’t like people to scream and jump and say: ‘Oh, a horrid Sara!’ the moment they saw me, and set traps for me, and pretend they were dinner. It’s so different to be a sparrow. But nobody asked this rat if he wanted to be a rat when he was made. Nobody said: ‘Wouldn’t you rather be a sparrow?”
— A Little Princess
#13
“Are you learning me by heart, little Sara?” he said, stroking her hair. “No,” she answered. “I know you by heart. You are inside my heart.”
— A Little Princess
#14
“I don’t like it, papa,” she said. “But then I dare say soldiers— even brave ones—don’t really like going into battle.”
— A Little Princess
#15
“I pretend I am a princess, so that I can try and behave like one.”
— A Little Princess
#16
“She did not care very much for other little girls, but if she had plenty of books she could console herself.”
— A Little Princess
#17
“Perhaps you can feel if you can’t hear,” was her fancy. “Perhaps kind thoughts reach people somehow, even through windows and doors and walls. Perhaps you feel a little warm and comforted, and don’t know why, when I am standing here in the cold and hoping you will get well and happy again.”
— A Little Princess
#18
“What you have to do with your mind, when your body is miserable, is to make it think of something else.”
— A Little Princess
#19
“Perhaps there is a language which is not made of words and everything in the world understands it.”
— A Little Princess
#20
“There was something friendly about Sara, and people always felt it.”
— A Little Princess
#21
“Somehow, something always happens just before things get to the very worst. It is as if Magic did it. If I could only just remember that always. The worse thing never quite comes.”
— A Little Princess
#22
“When people are insulting you, there is nothing so good for them as not to say a word — just to look at them and think. When you will not fly into a passion people know you are stronger than they are, because you are strong enough to hold in your rage, and they are not, and they say stupid things they wished they hadn’t said afterward. There’s nothing so strong as rage, except what makes you hold it in — that’s stronger. It’s a good thing not to answer your enemies.”
— A Little Princess
#23
“How it is that animals understand things I do not know, but it is certain that they do understand. Perhaps there is a language which is not made of words and everything in the world understands it. Perhaps there is a soul hidden in everything and it can always speak, without even making a sound, to another soul.”
— A Little Princess
#24
“Perhaps to be able to learn things quickly isn’t everything. To be kind is worth a great deal to other people…Lots of clever people have done harm and have been wicked.”
— A Little Princess
#25
“I am a princess. All girls are. Even if they live in tiny old attics. Even if they dress in rags, even if they aren’t pretty, or smart, or young. They’re still princesses.”
— A Little Princess
#26
“Never did she find anything so difficult as to keep herself from losing her temper when she was suddenly disturbed while absorbed in a book. People who are fond of books know the feeling of irritation which sweeps over them at such a moment. The temptation to be unreasonable and snappish is one not easy to manage.
“It makes me feel as if something had hit me,” Sara had told Ermengarde once in confidence. “And as if I want to hit back. I have to remember things quickly to keep from saying something ill-tempered.”
— A Little Princess
#27
“Everything’s a story – You are a story -I am a story.”
— A Little Princess
#28
“If nature has made you for a giver, your hands are born open, and so is your heart; and though there may be times when your hands are empty, your heart is always full, and you can give things out of that—warm things, kind things, sweet things—help and comfort and laughter—and sometimes gay, kind laughter is the best help of all.”
— A Little Princess
#29
“When you will not fly into a passion people know you are stronger than they are, because you are strong enough to hold in your rage, and they are not, and they say stupid things they wish they hadn’t said afterward. There’s nothing so strong as rage, except what makes you hold it in–that’s stronger. It’s a good thing not to answer your enemies.”
— A Little Princess
#30
“Whatever comes,” she said, “cannot alter one thing. If I am a princess in rags and tatters, I can be a princess inside. It would be easy to be a princess if I were dressed in cloth of gold, but it is a great deal more of a triumph to be one all the time when no one knows it.”
— A Little Princess
#31
“She looked into the staring glass eyes and complacent face, and suddenly a sort of heartbroken rage seized her. She lifted her little savage hand and knocked Emily off the chair, bursting into a passion of sobbing- Sara who never cried.”
— A Little Princess
#32
“The mere fact that Lottie had come and gone away again made things seem a little worse-just as perhaps prisoners feel a little more desolate after visitors come and go, leaving them behind.”
— A Little Princess
#33
“Give her books, and she would devour them and end by knowing them by heart.”
— A Little Princess