The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie Quotes

“To me education is a leading out of what is already there in the pupil's soul.”
― Muriel Spark, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie

“Allow me, in conclusion, to congratulate you warmly upon your sexual intercourse, as well as your singing.”
― Muriel Spark, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie

“The word "education" comes from the root e from ex, out, and duco, I lead. It means a leading out. To me education is a leading out of what is already there in the pupil's soul.”
― Muriel Spark, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie

“For those who like that sort of thing," said Miss Brodie in her best Edinburgh voice, "That is the sort of thing they like.”
― Muriel Spark, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie

“It is well, when in difficulties, to say never a word, neither black nor white. Speech is silver but silence is golden.”
― Muriel Spark, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie

“Give me a girl at an impressionable age and she is mine for life.”
― Muriel Spark, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie

“These years are still the years of my prime. It is important to recognise the years of one's prime, always remember that.”
― Muriel Spark, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie

“The word 'education' comes from the root e from ex, out, and duco, I lead. It means a leading out. To me education is a leading out of what is already there in the pupil's soul. To Miss Mackay it is a putting in of something that is not there, and that is not what I call education, I call it intrusion, from the Latin root prefix in meaning in and the stem trudo, I thrust.”
― Muriel Spark, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie

“One’s prime is elusive. You little girls, when you grow up, must be on the alert to recognise your prime at whatever time of your life it may occur. You must then live it to the full.”
― Muriel Spark, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie

“It's only possible to betray where loyalty is due”
― Muriel Spark, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie

“Phrases like 'the team spirit' are always employed to cut across individualism, love and personal loyalties.”
― Muriel Spark, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie

“4:15. Not 4 not 4:30 but 4:15. She thought to intimidate me with the use of quarter hours.”
― Muriel Spark, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie

“... flattening their scorn underneath the chariot wheels of her superiority.”
― Muriel Spark, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie

“The Brodie set did not for a moment doubt that she would prevail. As soon expect Julius Caesar to apply for a job at a crank school as Miss Brodie. She would never resign. If the authorities wanted to get rid of her she would have to be assassinated.”
― Muriel Spark, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie

“Miss Brodie was easily the equal of both sisters together, she was the square on the hypotenuse of a right-angled triangle and they were only the squares on the other two sides.”
― Muriel Spark, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie

“I'd rather deal with a rogue than a fool.”
― Muriel Spark, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie

“Nothing infuriates people more than their own lack of spiritual insight.”
― Muriel Spark, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie

“One's prime is the moment one was born for. ”
― Muriel Spark, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie

“Culture cannot compensate for lack of hard knowledge.”
― Muriel Spark, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie

“I'm not saying anything against the Modern side.
Modern and Classical, they are equal, and each provides for a function in life. You must make  your free choice. Not everyone is capable of a Classical education. You must make your choice quite freely.”
― Muriel Spark, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie

“But those of Miss Brodie's kind were great talkers and feminists and, like most feminists, talked to men as man‐to‐man. ”
― Muriel Spark, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie

“Six years previously, Miss Brodie had led her new class into the garden for a history lesson underneath the big elm. On the way through the school corridors they passed the headmistress's study. The door was wide open, the room was empty.
'Little girls,' said Miss Brodie, 'come and observe this.'
They clustered round the open door while she pointed to a large poster pinned with drawing-pins on the opposite wall within the room. It depicted a man's big face. Underneath were the words 'Safety First'.
'This is Stanley Baldwin who got in as Prime Minister and got out again ere long,' said Miss Brodie. 'Miss Mackay retains him on the wall because she believes in the slogan "Safety First". But Safety does not come first. Goodness, Truth and Beauty come first. Follow me.”
― Muriel Spark, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie

“In fact, it was the religion of Calvin of which Sandy felt deprived, or rather a specified recognition of it. She desired this birthright; something definite to reject. It pervaded the place in proportion as it was unacknowledged. In some ways the most real and rooted people whom Sandy knew were Miss Gaunt and the Kerr sisters who made no evasions about their believe that Gold had planned for practically everybody before they were born an nasty surprise when they died. Later, when Sandy read John Calvin, she found that although popular conceptions of Calvinism were sometimes mistaken, in this particular there was no mistake, indeed it was but a mild understanding of the case, he having made it God's pleasure to implant in certain people an erroneous since of joy and salvation, so that their surprise at the end might be the nastier.”
― Muriel Spark, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie

“I am putting old heads on your young shoulders,' Miss Brodie had told them at the time.”
― Muriel Spark, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie

“Sandy felt warmly towards Miss Brodie at these times when she saw how she was misled in her idea of Rose. It was then that Miss Brodie looked beautiful and fragile, just as dark heavy Edinburgh itself could suddenly be changed into a floating city when the light was a special pearly white and fell upon one of the gracefully fashioned streets. In the same way Miss Brodie's masterful features became clear and sweet to Sandy when viewed in the curious light of the woman's folly, and she never felt more affection for her in her later years than when she thought upon Miss Brodie silly.”
― Muriel Spark, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie

“Do you know, Sandy dear, all my ambitions are for you and Rose. You have got insight, perhaps not quite spiritual, but you're a deep one, and Rose has got instinct.'
'Perhaps not quite spiritual' said Sandy.
'Yes,' said Miss Brodie, 'you're right. Rose has got a future by virtue of her instinct.'
...
'I ought to know because my prime has brought me instinct and insight, both.”
― Muriel Spark, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie

“You girls," said Miss Brodie, "must learn to
cultivate an expression of composure. It is one of the best assets of a woman, an expression of composure, come foul, come fair. Regard the Mona Lisa over yonder!”
― Muriel Spark, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie

“In this oblique way, she began to sense what went to the makings of Miss Brodie who had elected herself to grace in so particular a way and with more exotic suicidal enchantment than if she had simply taken to drink like other spinsters who couldn't stand it any more.”
― Muriel Spark, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie

“There were legions of her kind during the nineteen-thirties, women from the age of thirty and upward, who crowded into their war-bereaved spinsterhood with voyages of discovery into new ideas and energetic practices in art and social welfare, education or religion.”
― Muriel Spark, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie

“You know," Sandy said, "these are supposed to be the happiest days of our lives."
"Yes, they are always saying that," Jenny said. "They say, make the most of your schooldays because you never know what lies ahead of you.”
― Muriel Spark, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie