We all enter the world little plastic beings, with so much natural force, perhaps, but for the rest--blank; and the world tells uswhat we are to be, and shapes us by the ends it sets before us. To you it says--Work; and to us it says--Seem! To you it says--As you approximate to man's highest ideal of God, as your arm is strong and your knowledge great, and the power to labour is with you, so you shall gain all that human heart desires. To us it says--Strength shall not help you, nor knowledge, nor labour. You shall gain what men gain, but by other means. And so the world makes men and women.
Olive SchreinerMarriage for love is the most beautiful external symbol of the union of souls; marriage without it is the least clean traffic that defiles the world.
Olive SchreinerOne has no right to form ideals of people, and then, because they don't justify them, become bitter.
Olive SchreinerNo woman has the right to marry a man if she has to bend herself out of shape for him. She might wish to, but she could never be to him with all her passionate endeavor what the other woman could be to him without trying. Character will dominate over all and will come out at last.
Olive SchreinerNow we have no God. We have had two: the old God that our fathers handed down to us, that we hated, and never liked; the new one that we made for ourselves, that we loved; but now he has flitted away from us, and we see what he was made of - the shadow of our highest ideal, crowned and throned. Now we have no God.
Olive Schreiner