Time and trouble will tame an advanced young woman, but an advanced old woman is uncontrollable by any earthly force.
Dorothy L. SayersRead
Nothing goes so well with a hot fire and buttered crumpets as a wet day without and a good dose of comfortable horrors within. The heavier the lashing of the rain and the ghastlier the details, the better the flavour seems to be.
Interpretation
The quote reflects the idea that gloomy weather can enhance the enjoyment of simple comforts.
Dorothy L. Sayers captures the cozy pleasure of enjoying familiar comforts, like warm crumpets by a fire, on a rainy day. The juxtaposition of external discomfort, such as a rainy storm, with internal contentment makes the experience richer, suggesting that sometimes, distressing circumstances can amplify our appreciation of life's simple joys.
In practice
In a speech about appreciating life’s simple pleasures during a community gathering.
Time and trouble will tame an advanced young woman, but an advanced old woman is uncontrollable by any earthly force.
But suppose one doesn't quite know which one wants to put first. Suppose," said Harriet, falling back on words which were not her own, "suppose one is cursed with both a heart and a brain?" "You can usually tell," said Miss de Vine, "by seeing what kind of mistakes you make. I'm quite sure that one never makes fundamental mistakes about the thing one really wants to do. Fundamental mistakes arise out of lack of genuine interest. In my opinion, that is.
. . . the fellow's got a bee in his bonnet. Thinks God's a secretion of the liver--all right once in a way, but there's no need to keep on about it. There's nothing you can't prove if your outlook is only sufficiently limited.
You're thinking that people don't keep up old jealousies for twenty years or so. Perhaps not. Not just primitive, brute jealousy. That means a word and a blow. But the thing that rankles is hurt vanity. That sticks. Humiliation. And we've all got a sore spot we don't like to have touched.
None of us feels the true love of God till we realize how wicked we are. But you can't teach people that - they have to learn by experience.
What is repugnant to every human being is to be reckoned always as a member of a class and not as an individual person.
There ought to be a man with a hammer behind the door of every happy man.
Account no man happy till he dies.
When your feeling down, do you know you can change it, like that. Put on a beautiful piece of music, start singing, that will change your emotion - or think of something beautiful, think of a baby, maybe one you love, really keep that thought in your mind, block out everything but that thought. I guarantee you'll start to feel good.
Happiness lies in the consciousness we have of it.
The major mark of justified believers is joy, especially joy in God himself. We should be the most positive people in the world. For the new community of Jesus Christ is characterized not by a self-centered triumphalism but by a God-centered worship.
When once a man has made celebrity necessary to his happiness, he has put it in the power of the weakest and most timorous malignity, if not to take away his satisfaction, at least to withhold it. His enemies may indulge their pride by airy negligence and gratify their malice by quiet neutrality.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.