The heart needs not for its heaven much space, nor many stars therein, if only the star of love has arisen.
I would rather dwell in the dim fog of superstition than in air rarefied to nothing by the air-pump of unbelief-in which the panting breast expires, vainly and convulsively gasping for breath.
Never write on a subject without first having read yourself full on it; and never read on a subject till you have thought yourself hungry on it.
See, indeed, that your daughter is thoroughly grounded and experienced in household duties; but take care, through religion and poetry, to keep her heart open to heaven.
Individuality is to be preserved and respected everywhere, as the root of everything good.
A variety of nothing is superior to a monotony of something.
The look of a king is itself a deed.
Laughing cheerfulness throws the light of day on all the paths of life.
Has it never occurred to us, when surrounded by sorrows, that they may be sent to us only for our instruction, as we darken the eyes of birds when we wish them to sing?
With so many thousand joys, is it not black ingratitude to call the world a place of sorrow and torment?
Memory, wit, fancy, acuteness, cannot grow young again in old age, but the heart can.
A scholar knows no boredom.
If self-knowledge is the road to virtue, so is virtue still more the road to self-knowledge.
Universal love is a glove without fingers, which fits all bands alike and none closely; but true affection is like a glove with fingers, which fits one hand only, and sits close to that one.
Without God there is for mankind no purpose, no goal, no hope, only a wavering future, an eternal dread of every darkness.
The romance of life begins and ends with two blank pages. Age and extreme old age.
How narrow our souls become when absorbed in any present good or ill! It is only the thought of the future that makes them great.
Death gives us sleep, eternal youth, and immortality.
Whenever, at a party, I have been in the mood to study fools, I have always looked for a great beauty: they always gather round her like flies around a fruit stall.
Two aged men, that had been foes for life, Met by a grave, and wept – and in those tears They washed away the memory of their strife; Then wept again the loss of all those years.