[Finishing schools] are nicely adapted machines for experimenting on the question, "Into how little space a human being can be crushed?" I have seen some souls so compressed that they would have fitted into a small thimble, and found room to move . . .
Olive SchreinerThere's something so beautiful in coming on one's very inmost thoughts in another. In one way it is one of the greatest pleasures one has.
Olive SchreinerPower! Did you ever hear of men being asked whether other souls should have power or not? It is born in them.
Olive SchreinerMy feeling is that there is nothing in life but refraining from hurting others, and comforting those who are sad.
Olive SchreinerSlavery may, perhaps, be best compared to the infantile disease of measles; a complaint which so commonly attacks the young of humanity in their infancy, and when gone through at that period leaves behind it so few fatal marks; but which when it normally attacks the fully developed adult becomes one of the most virulent and toxic of diseases, often permanently poisoning the constitution where it does not end in death.
Olive Schreiner