“As for myself, I do not wish to be one year younger than I am, and have…” — Joanna Baillie | V2Melody

“As for myself, I do not wish to be one year younger than I am, and have no desire, were it possible, to begin life again, even under the most honourable circumstances.”

Late-life contentment without a wish to rewind the clock · Letter to Mary Berry, 1837

About Joanna Baillie

Joanna Baillie

11 September 1762–23 February 1851

Joanna Baillie was born on 11 September 1762 at the manse of Bothwell, near Hamilton in Lanarkshire, Scotland, and died on 23 February 1851 at Hampstead, then a village on the northern edge of London. During her exceptionally long life, she became one of the most admired British writers of the Romantic period: a poet…

More by Joanna Baillie

Poems by Joanna Baillie

More remarks by Joanna Baillie

“In examining others we know ourselves.”

Self-knowledge, she argues, comes through watching the passions of other people · Introductory Discourse, A Series of Plays, 1798

“I have endeavoured to set in array, for the use of common readers, all the texts of the New Testament bearing upon a certain point of faith, leaving every one to judge for himself from the general tenor of the whole.”

A laywoman's insistence that belief should rest on scripture, not party · Letter defending A View of the General Tenor of the New Testament

“Formed as we are with these sympathetick propensities in regard to our own species, it is not at all wonderful that theatrical exhibition has become the grand and favourite amusement of every nation into which it has been introduced.”

Theatre exists, she says, because we cannot help watching one another · Introductory Discourse, A Series of Plays, 1798