Isabella Bird Quotes

It is singular that the Japanese, who rarely commit a solecism in taste in their national costume, architecture, or decorative art, seem to be perfectly destitute of perception when they borrow ours.

I am well as long as I live on horseback… sleep out-of-doors, or in a log cabin, and lead in all respects a completely unconventional life. But each time for a few days… I have become civilised, I have found myself rapidly going down again.

Appropriating the fruits of Christian civilisation, but rejecting the tree from which they spring.

Japan offers as much novelty perhaps as an excursion to another planet.

One eye was entirely gone, and the loss made one side of the face repulsive, while the other might have been modelled in marble. ‘Desperado’ was written in large letters all over him. I almost repented of having sought his acquaintance.