Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
National literature begins with fables and ends with novels.
Our ideals, like pictures, are made from lights and shadows.
In the commerce of language use only coin of gold and silver.
In order to be happy, think of the ills you have been spared.
Logic is to grammar what the sense of words is to their sound.
The direction of the mind is more important than its progress.
Men must be either the slaves of duty, or the slaves of force.
He who has imagination without learning has wings but no feet.
It is easier to be mistaken about the true than the beautiful.
Young authors give their brains much exercise and little food.
In the interchange of thought use no coin but gold and silver.
It is an aspect of all happiness to suppose that we deserve it.
How many people become abstract as a way of appearing profound.
Drawing is speaking to the eye; talking is painting to the ear.
Those readiest to criticise are often least able to appreciate.
The mind conceives with pain, but it brings forth with delight.
The supreme sway of chastity over the senses makes her queenly.
He who has not the weakness of friendship has not the strength.
All are born to observe order, but few are born to establish it.
One who has imagination without learning has wings without feet.
Whence? wither? why? how? - these questions cover all philosophy.
To be capable of respect is almost as rare as to be worthy of it.
All gardeners live in beautiful places because they make them so.
Eyes raised toward heaven are always beautiful, whatever they be.
The idea of the nest in the bird's mind, where does it come from?
You will find poetry nowhere unless you bring some of it with you.
Strength is not energy; some authors have more muscles than talent.
The true character of epistolary style is playfulness and urbanity.
We know God easily, if we do not constrain ourselves to define him.
When you go in search of honey you must expect to be stung by bees.
In these times gain is not only a matter of greed, but of ambition.
Sexes. One has the look of a wound, the other of something skinned.
Every legitimate authority should respect its extent and its limits.
We use up in the passions the stuff that was given us for happiness.
Truth consists of having the same idea about something that God has.
A part of kindness consists in loving people more than they deserve.
Genuinely good remarks surprise their author as well as his audience.
Superstition is the only religion of which base souls are capable of.
It is easy to understand God as long as you don't try to explain him.
When credulity comes from the heart it does no harm to the intellect.
You arrive at truth through poetry; I arrive at poetry through truth.
Contempt for private wrongs was one of the features of ancient morals.
Monuments are the grappling-irons that bind one generation to another.
Agriculture engenders good sense, and good sense of an excellent kind.
Without duty, life is sort of boneless; it cannot hold itself together.
You will not find poetry anywhere unless you bring some of it with you.
All disputation makes the mind deaf; and when people are deaf, I am dumb.
Without the spiritual world the material world is a disheartening enigma.
Old age deprives the intelligent man only of qualities useless to wisdom.
I resemble the poplar,--that tree which, even when old, still looks young.