Light, when suddenly let in, dazzles and hurts and almost blinds us: but this soon passes away, and it seems to become the only element we can exist in.
A youth’s love is the more passionate; virgin love is the more idolatrous.
There are men whom you will never dislodge from an opinion, except by taking possession of it yourself.
The mind is like a trunk: if well-packed, it holds almost every thing; if ill-packed, next to nothing.
Curiosity is little more than another name for Hope.
How often one sees people looking far and wide for what they are holding in their hands? Why! I am doing it myself at this very moment.
People cannot go wrong, if you don’t let them. They cannot go right, unless you let them.
If you wish a general to be beaten, send him a ream full of instructions; if you wish him to succeed, give him a destination, and bid him conquer.
There is as much difference between good poetry and fine verses, as between the smell of a flower-garden and of a perfumer’s shop.
In a mist the heights can for the most part see each other; but the valleys cannot.
Seeking is not always the way to find.
In the moment of our creation we receive the stamp of our individuality; and much of life is spent in rubbing off or defacing the impression.
Mythology is not religion. It may rather be regarded as the ancient substitute, the poetical counterpart, for dogmatic theology.
The most mischievous liars are those who keep sliding on the verge of truth.
Nobody who is afraid of laughing, and heartily too, at his friend, can be said to have a true and thorough love for him.
When a man says he sees nothing in a book, he very often means that he does not see himself in it: which, if it is not a comedy or a satire, is likely enough.
How few are our real wants! and how easy is it to satisfy them! Our imaginary ones are boundless and insatiable.
A faith that sets bounds to itself, that will believe so much and no more, that will trust thus far and no further, is none.
Many actions, like the Rhone, have two sources, – one pure, the other impure.
One saves oneself much pain, by taking pains; much trouble, by taking trouble.