The Princess and the Goblin

I should like to remark, for the sake of princes and princesses in general, that it is a low and contemptible thing to refuse to confess a fault, or even an error. If a true princess has done wrong, she is always uneasy…

Then what do you see? asked Irene, who perceived at once that for her not to believe him was at least as bad as for him not to believe her.

but that is the way fear serves us: it always sides with the thing we are afraid of.

But in the meantime, you must be content, I say, to be misunderstood for a while. We are all very anxious to be understood, and it is very hard not to be. But there is one thing much more necessary. What is that, grandmo…

That's all nonsense, said Curdie. I don't know what you mean. Then if you don't know what I mean, what right have you to call it nonsense?

It was foolish indeed - thus to run farther and farther from all who could help her, as if she had been seeking a fit spot for the goblin creature to eat her in at his leisure; but that is the way fear serves us: it alwa…

...it is so silly of people to fancy that old age means crookedness and witheredness and feebleness and sticks and spectacles and rheumatism and forgetfulness! It is so silly! Old age has nothing whatever to do with all…

It is when people do wrong things wilfully that they are the more likely to do them again.

People must believe what they can, and those who believe more must not be hard upon those who believe less. I doubt if you would have believed it all yourself if you hadn't seen some of it.