Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
The only place a new hat can be carried into with safety is a church, for there is plenty of room there.
Where the mouth is sweet and the eyes intelligent, there is always the look of beauty, with a right heart.
If you become a Nun, dear, The bishop Love will be; The Cupids every one, dear! Will chant-'We trust in thee!'
The perfection of conversational intercourse is when the breeding of high life is animated by the fervor of genius.
It is books that teach us to refine our pleasures when young, and to recall them with satisfaction when we are old.
Night's deepest gloom is but a calm; that soothes the weary mind: The labored days restoring balm; the comfort of mankind.
May exalting and humanizing thoughts forever accompany me, making me confident without pride, and modest without servility.
To receive a present handsomely and in a right spirit, even when you have none to give in return, is to give one in return.
There are two worlds: the world we can measure with line and rule, and the world that we feel with our hearts and imagination.
There are two worlds: The world that we can measure with line and rule, and the world we feel with our hearts and imaginations.
Stolen sweets are always sweeter, Stolen kisses much completer, Stolen looks are nice in chapels, Stolen, stolen be your apples.
Colors are the smiles of Nature. When they are extremely smiling, and break forth into other beauty besides, they are her laughs.
The more sensible a woman is, supposing her not to be masculine, the more attractive she is in her proportionate power to entertain.
A friend of ours, who is an admirer of Isaac Walton, was struck, just as we were, with the likeness of the old angler's face to a fish.
If you are melancholy for the first time, you will find, upon a little inquiry, that others have been melancholy many times, and yet are cheerful now.
I am persuaded there is no such thing after all as a perfect enjoyment of solitude; for the more delicious the solitude the more one wants a companion.
Words are often things also, and very precious, especially on the gravest occasions. Without "words," and the truth of things that is in them, what were we?
We are slumberous poppies, Lords of Lethe downs, Some awake and some asleep, Sleeping in our crowns. What perchance our dreams may know, Let our serious may know.
Whatever evil befalls us, we ought to ask ourselves... how we can turn it into good. So shall we take occasion, from one bitter root, to raise perhaps many flowers.
We are violets blue, For our sweetness found Careless in the mossy shades, Looking on the ground. Love's dropp'd eyelids and a kiss,-- Such our breath and blueness is.
Little eyes must be good-tempered or they are ruined. They have no other resource. But this will beautify them enough. They are made for laughing, and, should do their duty.
Green little vaulter, in the sunny grass, Catching your heart up at the feel of June, Sole noise that's heard amidst the lazy noon, When ev'n the bees lag at the summoning brass.
Many birds and beasts are...as fit to go to Heaven as many human beings - people who talk of their seats there with as much confidence as if they had booked them at a box office.
It flows through old hushed Egypt and its sands, Like some grave mighty thought threading a dream, And times and things, as in that vision, seem Keeping along it their eternal stands.
Part of our good consists in the endeavor to do sorrows away, and in the power to sustain them when the endeavor fails,--to bear them nobly, and thus help others to bear them as well.
A large bare forehead gives a woman a masculine and defying look. The word "effrontery" comes from it. The hair should be brought over such a forehead as vines are trailed over a wall.
"Books ... books, ..." he exclaims. It is those that teach us to refine on our pleasures when young, and which, having so taught us, enable us to recall them with satisfaction when old.
Anglers boast of the innocence of their pastime; yet it puts fellow-creatures to the torture. They pique themselves on their meditative faculties; and yet their only excuse is a want of thought.
Affection, like melancholy, magnifies trifles; but the magnifying of the one is like looking through a telescope at heavenly objects; that of the other, like enlarging monsters with a microscope.
Mankind are creatures of books, as well as of other circumstances; and such they eternally remain,--proofs, that the race is a noble and believing race, and capable of whatever books can stimulate.
Some tears belong to us because we are unfortunate; others, because we are humane; many, because we are mortal. But most are caused by our being unwise. It is these last only that of necessity produce more.
Central depth of purple, Leaves more bright than rose, Who shall tell what brightest thought Out of darkness grows? Who, through what funereal pain, Souls to love and peace attain? - Leigh Hunt (James Henry Leigh Hunt
Tears and sorrows and losses are a part of what must be experienced in this present state of life: some for our manifest good, and ail, therefore, it is trusted, for our good concealed;--for our final and greatest good.
Table talk, to be perfect, should be sincere without bigotry, differing without discord, sometimes grave, always agreeable, touching on deep points, dwelling most on seasonable ones, and letting everybody speak and be heard.
God made both tears and laughter, and both for kind purposes; for as laughter enables mirth and surprise to breathe freely, so tears enable sorrow to vent itself patiently. Tears hinder sorrow from becoming despair and madness.
A dog can have a friend; he has affections and character, he can enjoy equally the field and the fireside; he dreams, he caresses, he propitiates; he offends, and is pardoned; he stands by you in adversity; he is a good fellow.
Beauty too often sacrifices to fashion. The spirit of fashion is not the beautiful, but the wilful; not the graceful, but the fantastic; not the superior in the abstract, but the superior in the worst of all concretes,-the vulgar.
For the most part, we should pray rather in aspiration than petition, rather by hoping than requesting; in which spirit also we may breathe a devout wish for a blessing on others upon occasions when it might be presumptuous to beg it.
Fail not to call to mind, in the course of the twenty-fifth of this month, that the Divinest Heart that ever walked the earth was born on that day; and then smile and enjoy yourselves for the rest of it; for mirth is also of Heaven's making.
We must regard all matter as an intrusted secret which we believe the person concerned would wish to be considered as such. Nay, further still, we must consider all circumstances as secrets intrusted which would bring scandal upon another if told.
Jenny kissed me when we met, Jumping from the chair she sat in; Time, you thief, who love to get Sweets into your list, put that in: Say I'm weary, say I'm sad, Say that health and wealth have missed me, Say I'm growing old, but add-- Jenny kissed me!
We really cannot see what equanimity there is in jerking a lacerated carp out of the water by the jaws, merely because it has no the power of making a noise; for we presume that the most philosophic of anglers would hardly delight in catching a shrieking fish.
It is a delicious moment, certainly, that of being well nestled in bed, and feeling that you shall drop gently to sleep. The good is to come, not past; the limbs have just been tired enough to render the remaining in one posture delightful; the labour of the day is gone
An exquisite invention this, Worthy of Love's most honeyed kiss,-- This art of writing billet-doux-- In buds, and odors, and bright hues! In saying all one feels and thinks In clever daffodils and pinks; In puns of tulips; and in phrases, Charming for their truth, of daisies.
I loved my friend for his gentleness, his candor, his good repute, his freedom even from my own livelier manner, his calm and reasonable kindness. It was not any particular talent that attracted me to him, or i anything striking whatsoever. I should say in one word, it was his goodness.
The most fascinating women are those that can most enrich the every day moments of existence. In a particular and attaching sense, they are those that can partake our pleasures and our pains in the liveliest and most devoted manner. Beauty is little without this; with it she is triumphant.
O scaly, slippery, wet, swift, staring wights, What is 't ye do? what life lead? eh, dull goggles? How do ye vary your vile days and nights? How pass your Sundays? Are ye still but joggles In ceaseless wash? Still nought but gapes and bites, And drinks, and stares, diversified with boggles.
Fishes do not roar; they cannot express any sound of suffering; and therefore the angler chooses to think they do not suffer, more than it is convenient for him to fancy. Now it is a poor sport that depends for its existence on the want of a voice in the sufferer, and of imagination in the sportsman.
There is scarcely a single joy or sorrow within the experience of our fellow-creatures which we have not tasted; yet the belief, in the good and beautiful has never forsaken us. It has been medicine to us in sickness, richness in poverty, and the best part of all that ever delighted us in health and success.
We lose in depth of expression when we go to inferior animals for comparisons with human beauty. Homer calls Juno ox-eyed; and the epithet suits well with the eyes of that goddess, because she may be supposed, with all her beauty, to want a certain humanity. Her large eyes look at you with a royal indifference.