There is, however, another subject on which the Queen feels most strongly, and that is this horrible, brutalizing, un-Christian-like vivisection…It must really not be permitted. It is a disgrace to a civilized country.

I love peace and quiet, I hate politics and turmoil. We women are not made for governing, and if we are good women, we must dislike these masculine occupations.

Affairs go on, and all will take some shape or other, but it keeps one in hot water all the time.

[On alcohol:] Total abstinence is an impossibility and ... it will not do to insist on it as a general practice.

Oh! If those selfish men, who are the cause of all one's misery, only knew what their poor slaves go through! What suffering, what humiliation to the delicate feelings of a poor woman, above all a young one, especially with those nasty doctors.

When I think of a merry, happy, and free young girl - and look at the ailing aching state a young wife is generally doomed to - which you can't deny is the penalty of marriage.

The important thing is not what they think of me, but what I think of them.