Adeline Virginia Stephen, better known in the literary world as Virginia Woolf, was an English writer, short story writer, and creator of plays. She was one of the most powerful influences on feminism during the 20th century, challenging the rigidity of gender roles associated with women and reinforced by the puritanism of the Victorian era; Likewise, she became one of the most prominent representatives of the avant-garde Anglo-Saxon modernism movement.
In this selection of the best phrases of Virginia Woolf You will find a sample of the ideas and life philosophy of this author.
The most memorable Virginia Woolf phrases
Despite leaving us several teachings about moving forward in life despite bad times and dark emotions, she was never able to free herself from the clutches of depression and melancholy, which made her succumb to ending her life.
However, we bring this collection of phrases and thoughts from Virginia Woolf to remember her literary and feminist legacy.
1. There is no barrier, lock, or bolt that you can impose on the freedom of my mind.
No one can put limits on our mind.
2. Life is a dream, waking up is what kills us.
Facing the distressing day-to-day life brings us a burden that is difficult to overcome.
3. You can’t find peace by escaping life.
Ignoring what happens to you only contributes to making everything worse.
4. Beauty must be broken daily to remain beautiful.
Beauty is in what defies the normal.
5. A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is going to write fiction.
An interesting tip on productive writing for women.
6. Love is an illusion, a story that one builds in one’s mind, aware all the time that it is not true, and that is why one is careful not to destroy the illusion.
Do you think that love is nothing more than an illusion?
7. Since no one can tell me if the writing is bad or good, the only safe value is pleasure itself. I’m sure about that.
No one can guess what is right or wrong in writing.
8. Silence is better… Let me sit with the naked things, this cup of coffee, this knife, this fork, things in themselves, being myself.
We all need a moment alone to reflect.
9. Books are the mirrors of the soul.
Books are also a necessity for our growth.
10. I really don’t like human nature unless it’s all seasoned with art.
Humanity always surprises us, both good and bad.
11. His brain was in perfect condition. Surely the world was to blame for not being able to feel.
Sometimes we have to adapt to things we can’t control.
12. Women have lived all these centuries as wives, with the magical and delicious power of reflecting the figure of a man twice its natural size.
Women who could only enhance the figure of their husbands.
13. I wanted to write about everything, about the life we have and the lives we could have had. I wanted to write about all the possible ways to die.
A clear example of his obsession with that thin thread that separates life from death.
14. There is nothing so strange when you are in love as the total indifference of others.
When we are in love we tend to ignore the rest of the world around us.
15. One cannot bring children into a world like this; One cannot consider perpetuating suffering, nor increasing the breed of these lustful animals that do not have lasting emotions, but only whims and banalities that take you one way now and another tomorrow.
A controversial thought that can now come to light, with women’s decision to be mothers or not.
16. I feel like I’m going crazy again. I don’t think we can go through one of those terrible times again. And I can’t recover this time.
Part of her suicide letter that she left for her husband.
17. When you think about things like the stars, our affairs don’t seem to matter much, right?
Part of the complexity of our problems only lives in our minds.
18. Because it is a great shame to never say what you feel…
When you silence what you have inside, you end up exploding in a negative way.
19. It is not catastrophes, murders, deaths, diseases that age us and kill us; It’s the way others look and laugh and climb the stairs of the bus.
What really hurts us is the ease with which others seem to lead their lives, without any problems.
20.References:
is replete with the remains of men who have cared beyond reason about the opinions of others.
References:
is a space where everyone can express themselves, as long as they have something to say.
21. To enjoy freedom, we have to control ourselves.
Freedom is not an excuse to forget our responsibilities.
22. Nothing has really happened until it has been recorded.
What we know has happened is because it has been written in history.
23. Maturing is losing some illusions to start having others.
Part of growing up is letting go of some things to start looking for new dreams.
24. If they stuck to their own experience, they would always feel that that is not what they want, that there is nothing more boring and childish and inhuman than love, but that, at the same time, it is beautiful and necessary.
Love is a goal that many aspire to reach, because we need to be accompanied.
25. The depths of the sea are just water after all.
A metaphor that makes us see that our fears are just small parts put together into one.
26. Women have enjoyed less intellectual freedom than the children of Athenian slaves. Women have not had the slightest opportunity to write poetry.
A harsh criticism of the intellectual slavery that women of her time had.
27. The history of most women is hidden by silence or by decorations that amount to silence.
How many lost or hidden achievements will there be, by people who silenced their creators.
28. The extraordinary woman depends on the ordinary woman.
We all have the capacity to be great people.
29. The future is dark, I think it is the best for the future.
The future is uncertain.
30. Writing is like sex. First you do it for love, then for your friends and then for money.
An interesting way to explain his evolution in writing.
31. As long as you write what you want to write, that’s all that matters; and whether it matters for years or only for hours, no one can say.
Every writer challenges the rules in their stories, because it is their form of freedom.
32. The history of male resistance to female emancipation is almost more interesting than the history of emancipation itself.
Men who, for different reasons, believe that they should reduce the power of women.
33. We have a strange power to change facts with the power of imagination.
Our memories can be altered to our convenience.
34. I have searched for happiness through many ages and have not found it.
Happiness is an option that we decide to have every day.
35. How many times have people used a pencil or paintbrush because they couldn’t pull the trigger?
Many artists find a way out of their misfortunes in their works.
36. And all the lives we ever lived and all the lives to come are full of trees and changing leaves.
Life cannot be static.
37. I am rooted, but I flow.
We can get through it with our willpower, just to get out of the darkness a little.
38. And yet, the only exciting life is the imaginary one.
We all need an escape from this harsh reality.
39. Knowledge is achieved through suffering.
Many people believe that pain is the best experience.
40. The eyes of others are our prisons; Your thoughts, our cages.
When we are attached to the opinion of others, we refuse to live how we really want.
41. Often on a wet day I start counting; what I have read and what I have not read.
It is those gray moments that most attract the warmth of a book.
42. Nothing thicker than a razor separates happiness from melancholy
Melancholy is made of happy moments that we miss living again.
43. Some people go to priests; others to poetry; I to my friends.
How many secrets do our friends carry?
44. Language is wine on the lips.
A cultured person will always be attractive.
45. Death is the enemy. Death is what I ride against with my sword sheathed and my hair blowing in the wind.
Despite moving away from death, Virginia succumbed to the need to extinguish her existence.
46. Some things were very beautiful; other meaningless nonsense.
Our mind can give unnecessary importance to things that happen to us.
47. Never let anyone guess that you have a mind of your own. Above all be pure.
Save your best cards for the moment you need them.
48. It is the writing, not the being read, that excites me. The joy is in the doing.
More than having readers, it was being able to vent in their stories.
49. My greatest wish was always to increase the night so I could fill it with dreams.
Many artists are inspired by the hours of the night.
50. Yes, I deserve spring, I don’t owe anyone anything.
You don’t need to explain your life to anyone.
51. All extreme feelings are associated with madness.
The truth is that extreme emotions can alter our mood.
52. The nerve that controls the feather coils around every fiber of our being, threads the heart, runs through the liver.
Writing from the inside.
53. I am reading six books at a time, the only way to read; for, as you will agree, a book is just one note without accompaniment, and to get the full sound, one needs ten others at the same time.
Are you one of those who read one or more books at the same time?
54. Second-hand books are wild books, homeless books; They have gathered in vast flocks of variegated feathers, and have a charm which the tamed volumes of the library lack.
All books have great value, even if some are only carried away by their cover.
55. I begin to wish for sparse language like that used by lovers, broken words, broken words, like the rubbing of footsteps on the sidewalk.
There are people who have their own language, like couples or friends.
56. How many women are forgotten because not even they themselves could, can or will say ‘this mouth is mine’, ‘this body is mine’, ‘this is what I think’.
Lamenting the secrecy that women had to keep to please society.
57. Our hate can hardly be differentiated from our love.
It says well that from love to hate there is only one step.
58. I believe that all novels are about character and that it is to express character, not dreaming of doctrines, singing songs or celebrating the glories of the British Empire that the form of the novel, so rich, elastic and alive, evolves.
What novels represented for Virginia.
59. I can only notice that the past is beautiful because one never notices an emotion in the moment. It expands later, and therefore we do not have full emotions about the present, only about the past.
According to Virginia, we tend to appreciate things better when they have already happened, rather than when we are experiencing them.
60. We inevitably regard society, so kind to you, so harsh to us, as an inadequate form that distorts the truth; warps the mind; chains the will.
Society is usually good to those who follow its way of running the world.
61. I like people to be unhappy because I like them to have souls.
People who always appear cheerful, without a hint of sadness, tend to hide something.
62. Humor is the first of the gifts to perish in a foreign language.
A reference to the fact that translations can affect the way something is narrated.
63. A self that continues to change is a self that continues to live.
Change is what allows us to move forward, without anything stopping us.
64. I continually make myself and make myself again. Each person extracts different words from me.
We all have the right to change as many times as we want.
65. I start hearing voices, and I can’t concentrate. So I do what I think is the best I can do. You have given me the greatest possible happiness.
Sometimes our partner becomes an anchor of reality.
66. And once again she felt alone in the presence of her eternal antagonist: life.
Virginia had this love-hate relationship with life, because she wanted to enjoy it, but something prevented her.
67. Everything is ephemeral like the rainbow.
Nothing stays the same forever. Everything changes.
68. We are nauseated by the sight of trivial personalities decomposing in the eternity of print.
Showing contempt for those superficial and conformist people.
69. One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not eaten well.
Eating should represent a necessary pillar of our physical and emotional health.
70. The truth is that writing is the deepest pleasure, being read is only a superficial pleasure.
Many writers work to please themselves, as a necessity they cannot avoid.
71. Every secret of a writer’s soul, every experience of his life, every attribute of his mind, are widely written in his work.
Every book, novel, poetry and work, has a little bit of its authors.
72. If you don’t tell the truth about yourself, you can’t tell it about other people.
You cannot point fingers at someone for their actions, otherwise you are responsible for your own actions.
73. When I cannot see the words that coil like rings of smoke around me, I am in darkness, I am nothing.
Her way of escaping those negative feelings that tormented her was her writing.
74. I feel that all the shadows of the universe multiply deep within my skin.
A reference to the melancholy that never left her.
75. It is obvious that women’s values frequently differ from the values created by the other sex and yet it is masculine values that predominate.
A critique of society’s demands for men and women.
76. As a woman I have no country, as a woman I do not want a country. As a woman, my homeland is the world.
We belong in the place we consider home, no matter where it is.
77. For most of the story, Anonymous was a woman.
Unfortunately, many women were not able to publicly develop their talents.
78. There is no need to rush. There is no need to shine. It is not necessary to be anyone but yourself.
This life is not a race, the true goal is to seek our happiness.
79. Love separates us from others.
When couples are created, we distance ourselves a little from friendships.
80. Each one had his past locked within himself, like the pages of a book learned by them by heart; and his friends could only read the title.
All people have a past that we carry within us without being able to forget.
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PsychologyFor. (2024). The 80 Best Phrases by Virginia Woolf. PsychologyFor. https://psychologyfor.com/the-80-best-phrases-by-virginia-woolf/