I am ashes where once I was fire...
The light of love, the purity of grace, The mind, the Music breathing from her face, The heart whose softness harmonised the whole – And, oh! that eye was in itself a Soul!
A timid mind is apt to mistake every scratch for a mortal wound.
Despair and Genius are too oft connected.
What deep wounds ever closed without a scar? The hearts bleed longest, and heals but to wear That which disfigures it.
My heart in passion, and my head on rhymes.
The bright sun was extinguish’d, and the stars Did wander darkling in the eternal space.
I am so changeable, being everything by turns and nothing long – such a strange melange of good and evil.
For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast, And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed; And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill, And their hearts but once heaved, and for ever grew still!
No hand can make the clock strike for me the hours that are passed.
If I am fool, it is, at least, a doubting one; and I envy no one the certainty of his self-approved wisdom.
What a strange thing man is; and what a stranger thing woman.
This is the patent age of new inventions for killing bodies, and for saving souls. All propagated with the best intentions.
This man is freed from servile bands, Of hope to rise, or fear to fall; Lord of himself, though not of lands, And leaving nothing, yet hath all.
We are all selfish and I no more trust myself than others with a good motive.
My turn of mind is so given to taking things in the absurd point of view, that it breaks out in spite of me every now and then.
Sometimes we are less unhappy in being deceived by those we love, than in being undeceived by them.
He who is only just is cruel. Who on earth could live were all judged justly?
Why I came here, I know not; where I shall go it is useless to inquire – in the midst of myriads of the living and the dead worlds, stars, systems, infinity, why should I be anxious about an atom?
In England the only homage which they pay to Virtue – is hypocrisy.