Depending upon one another’s hearts, ye had still hoped that virtue were not all a dream. Now are ye undeceived. Evil is the nature of mankind.
In the depths of every heart there is a tomb and a dungeon, though the lights, the music, and the revelry above may cause us to forget their existence...
All merely graceful attributes are usually the most evanescent.
I find nothing so singular to life as that everything appears to lose its substance the instant one actually grapples with it.
As a general rule, Providence seldom vouchsafes to mortals any more than just that degree of encouragement which suffices to keep them at a reasonably full exertion of their powers.
How is it possible to sayan unkind or irreverential word of Rome? The city of all time, and of all the world!
I have laughed, in bitterness and agony of heart, at the contrast between what I seem and what I am!
It was one of those moments – which sometimes occur only at the interval of years – when a man’s moral aspect is faithfully revealed to his mind’s eye. Not improbably, he had never before viewed himself as he did now.
She could no longer borrow from the future to ease her present grief.
There are many things in this world that a child must not ask about.
But, all this while, I was giving myself very unnecessary alarm. Providence had mediated better things for me than I could possibly imagine for myself.
My fortune somewhat resembled that of a person who should entertain an idea of committing suicide, and, altogether beyond his hopes, meet with the good hap to be murdered.
You can get assent to almost any proposition so long as you are not going to do anything about it.
Nobody has any conscience about adding to the improbabilities of a marvelous tale.
The greatest obstacle to being heroic is the doubt whether one may not be going to prove one’s self a fool; the truest heroism is to resist the doubt; and the profoundest wisdom, to know when it ought to be resisted, and when it be obeyed.
A woman’s chastity consists, like an onion, of a series of coats.
A stale article, if you dip it in a good, warm, sunny smile, will go off better than a fresh one that you’ve scowled upon.
Our Creator would never have made such lovely days, and have given us the deep hearts to enjoy them, above and beyond all thought, unless we were meant to be immortal.
In this republican country, amid the fluctuating waves of our social life, somebody is always at the drowning-point.
Strength is incomprehensible by weakness, and, therefore, the more terrible.