But what is Hope? Nothing but the paint on the face of Existence; the least touch of truth rubs it off, and then we see what a hollow-cheeked harlot we have got hold of.
There is something pagan in me that I cannot shake off. In short, I deny nothing, but doubt everything.
You gave me the key to your heart, my love, then why did you make me knock?
I have a great mind to believe in Christianity for the mere pleasure of fancying I may be damned.
The thorns which I have reap’d are of the tree I planted; they have torn me, and I bleed. I should have known what fruit would spring from such a seed.
Tis strange,-but true; for truth is always strange; Stranger than fiction: if it could be told, How much would novels gain by the exchange! How differently the world would men behold!
Friendship is love without wings.
I love not man the less, but nature more.
They never fail who die in a great cause.
Letter writing is the only device combining solitude with good company.
I had a dream, which was not at all a dream.
What deep wounds ever closed without a scar?
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?
I only go out to get me a fresh appetite for being alone.
Let us have wine and women, mirth and laughter, sermons and soda water the day after.
Man, being reasonable, must get drunk; the best of life is but intoxication.
Are not the mountains, waves, and skies as much a part of me, as I of them?
In her first passion, a woman loves her lover, in all the others all she loves is love.
There’s music in the sighing of a reed; There’s music in the gushing of a rill; There’s music in all things, if men had ears; The earth is but the music of the spheres.
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!