Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Nothing but love can answer to love; no affection, no kindness, no care, can supply its place: it is its own sweet want.
Ah, tell me not that memory sheds gladness o'er the past, what is recalled by faded flowers, save that they did not last?
there is nothing so easy as to be wise for others; a species of prodigality, by-the-by - for such wisdom is wholly wasted.
It is amazing how much a thought expands and refines by being put into speech: I should think it could hardly know itself.
I think hearts are very much like glasses. If they do not break with the first ring, they usually last a considerable time.
In sad truth, half our forebodings of our neighbors are but our own wishes, which we are ashamed to utter in any other form.
he who seeks pleasure with reference to himself, not others, will ever find that pleasure is only another name for discontent.
the fact is, that life is too short to be occupied by aught but the present - hope and remembrance are equally a waste of time.
Whatever people in general do not understand, they are always prepared to dislike; the incomprehensible is always the obnoxious.
Whenever I hear a man talking of the advantages of our ill-used sex, I look upon it as the prelude to some new act of authority.
Oh, only those whose souls have felt this one idolatry can tell how precious is the slightest thing affection gives and hallows.
The truth is, we like to talk over our disasters, because they are ours; and others like to listen, because they are not theirs.
Whatever people in general do not understand, they are al ways prepared to dislike; the incomprehensible is always the obnoxious.
Praise is sometimes a good thing for the diffident and the despondent. It teaches them properly to rely on the kindness of others.
Everything that looks to the future elevates human nature; for life is never so low or so little as when occupied with the present.
No thoroughly occupied man was ever yet very miserable.[to feel unhappy you need the time to consider how your lot could be better]
Social life is filled with doubts and vain aspirings; solitude, when the imagination is dethroned, is turned to weariness and ennui.
I would give worlds, could I believe One-half that is profess'd me; Affection! could I think it Thee, When Flattery has caress'd me.
Oh, no! my heart can never be Again in lightest hopes the same; The love that lingers there for thee Hath more of ashes than of flame.
I hate the word 'ought' - it always implies something dull, cold, and commonplace. The 'ought nots' of life are its pleasantest things.
Hard are life's early steps; and but that youth is buoyant, confident, and strong in hope, men would behold its threshold, and despair.
The old proverb, applied to fire and water, may with equal truth be applied to the imagination - it is a good servant, but a bad master.
If there be any one habit which more than another is the dry rot of all that is high and generous in youth, it is the habit of ridicule.
Enthusiasm is the divine particle in our composition: with it we are great, generous, and true; without it, we are little, false, and mean.
Suicide and antipathy to fires in a bedroom seem to be among the national characteristics. Perhaps the same moral cause may originate both.
Alas! we makeA ladder of our thoughts, where angels step,But sleep ourselves at the foot: our high resolvesLook down upon our slumbering acts.
That which is always within our reach, is always the last thing we take; and the chances are, that what we can do every day, we never do at all.
The truth is, we never make for others the allowance we make for ourselves; and we should deny even our own words, could we hear them spoken by another.
What is life? A gulf of troubled waters, where the soul, like a vexed bark, is tossed upon the waves of pain and pleasure by the wavering breath of passions.
it is a curious fact, but one which all experience owns, that people do not desire so much to appear better, as to appear different from what they really are.
Politeness, however, acts the lady's maid to our thoughts; and they are washed, dressed, curled, rouged, and perfumed, before they are presented to the public.
There is no denying that there are 'royal roads' through existence for the upper classes; for them, at least, the highways are macadamized, swept, and watered.
... many a heart is caught in the rebound ... Pride may be soothed by the ready devotion of another; vanity may be excited the more keenly by recent mortification.
Strange the affection which clings to inanimate objects - objects which cannot even know our love! But it is not return that constitutes the strength of an attachment.
How often, in this cold and bitter world, is the warm heart thrown back upon itself! Cold, careless, are we of another's grief; we wrap ourselves in sullen selfishness.
to the many, witticisms not only require to be explained, like riddles, but are also like new shoes, which people require to wear many times before they get accustomed to them.
sight-seeing gratifies us in different ways. First, there is the pleasure of novelty; secondly, either that of admiration or fault-finding - the latter a very animated enjoyment.
Ah, tell me not that memory Sheds gladness o'er the past; What is recalled by faded flowers, Save that they did not last? Were it not better to forget, Than but remember and regret?
I have a respect for family pride. If it be a prejudice, it is a prejudice in its most picturesque shape. But I hold it is connected with some of the noblest feelings in our nature.
Strange mystery of our nature, that those in whom genius develops itself in imagination, thus taking its most ethereal form, should yet be the most dependent on the opinions of others!
The dream on the pillow, That flits with the day, The leaf of the willow A breath wears away; The dust on the blossom, The spray on the sea; Ay,--ask thine own bosom-- Are emblems of thee.
Perhaps, from an innate desire of justification, sorrow always exaggerates itself. Memory is quite one of Job's friends; and the past is ever ready to throw its added darkness on the present.
In our road through life we may happen to meet with a man casting a stone reverentially to enlarge the cairn of another which stone he has carried in his bosom to sling against that very other's head.
youth, balancing itself upon hope, is forever in extremes: its expectations are continually aroused only to be baffled, and disappointment, like a summer shower, is violent in proportion to its brevity.
We would liken music to Aladdin's lamp — worthless in itself, not so for the spirits which obey its call. We love it for the buried hopes, the garnered memories, the tender feelings, it can summon with a touch.
Of all false assertions that ever went into the world under the banner of a great name and the mail armor of a well-turned phrase, Locke's comparison of the mind to a blank sheet of paper appears to me among the most untrue.
Every other species of talent carries with it its eternity; we enjoy the work of the poet, the painter, the sculptor, only as thousands will do after us; but the actor - his memory is with his generation, and that passes away.
A blossom full of promise is life's joy, That never comes to fruit. Hope, for a time, Suns the young floweret in its gladsome light, And it looks flourishing--a little while-- 'T is pass'd, we know not whither, but 't is gone.
And this is woman's fate: all her affections are called into life by winning flatteries, and then thrown back upon themselves to perish; and her heart, her trusting heart, filled with weak tenderness, is left to bleed or break!
there can be neither politically nor morally a good which is not universal ... we cannot reform for a time or for a class, but for all and for the whole, and our very interests will draw us together in one wide bond of sympathy.