“The difference between a lady and a flower girl is not how she behaves, but how she’s treated.”

“I shall always be a flower girl to Professor Higgins, because he always treats me as a flower girl, and always will; but I know I can be a lady to you, because you always treat me as a lady, and always will.”

“Everybody has choices, Mother. The poorest girl alive may not be able to choose between being Queen of England or Principal of Newnham; but she can choose between rag-picking and flower-selling, according to her taste. People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don't believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can't find them, make them.”

“I sold flowers. I didn't sell myself. Now you've made a lady of me I'm not fit to sell anything else.”

“O God that madest this beautiful earth, when will it be ready to receive Thy saints? How long, O Lord, how long?”

“Those who do not know how to live must make a merit of dying.”

“If history repeats itself, and the unexpected always happens, how incapable must Man be of learning from experience.”