Love, whether newly born or aroused from a deathlike slumber, must always create sunshine, filling the heart so full of radiance, that it overflows upon the outward world.
Oh, for the years I have not lived, but only dreamed of living.
Happiness is like a butterfly which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.
Every individual has a place to fill in the world and is important in some respect, whether he chooses to be so or not.
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.
Words – so innocent and powerless as they are, as standing in a dictionary, how potent for good and evil they become in the hands of one who knows how to combine them.
She had not known the weight until she felt the freedom.
The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread.
America is now wholly given over to a damned mob of scribbling women, and I should have no chance of success while the public taste is occupied with their trash.
Women derive a pleasure, incomprehensible to the other sex, from the delicate toil of the needle.
But never had their youthful beauty seemed so pure and high, as when its glow was chastened by adversity.
What is called poetic insight is the gift of discerning, in this sphere of strangely-mingled elements, the beauty and the majesty which are compelled to assume a garb so sordid.
Angels do not toil, but let their good works grow out of them.
I cannot endure to waste anything so precious as autumnal sunshine by staying in the h
Let men tremble to win the hand of woman, unless they win along with it the utmost passion of her heart!
Like all other music, it breathed passion and pathos, and emotions high or tender, in a tongue native to the human heart, wherever educated.
The sorrow that lay cold in her mother’s heart… converted it into a tomb.
The mind is in a sad state when Sleep, the all-involving, cannot confine her spectres within the dim region of her sway, but suffers them to break forth, affrighting this actual life with secrets that perchance belong to a deeper one.
he seemed to be in quest for mental food, not heart sustenance.
There are few uglier traits of human nature than this tendency—which I now witnessed in men no worse than their neighbours—to grow cruel, merely because they possessed the power of inflicting harm.
On Andrew Jackson: “His native strength compelled every man to be his tool that came within his reach; and the more cunning the individual might be, it served only to make him a sharper tool.
There are many things in this world that a child must not ask about.
Then might I exemplify how an influence beyond our control lays its strong hand on every deed which we do, and weaves its consequences into an iron tissue of necessity. (Wakefield)
All have some artificial badge which the world, and themselves among the first, learn to consider as a genuine characteristic.
Unable to penetrate to the secret place of his soul where his motives lay hidden, he believed that a supernatural voice had called him onward, and that a supernatural power had obstructed his retreat.
Is it a fact – or have I dreamt it – that, by means of electricity, the world of matter has become a great nerve, vibrating thousands of miles in a breathless point of time?
When he is cheerful–when the sun shines into his mind–then I venture to peep in, just as far as the light reaches, but no further. It is holy ground where the shadow falls!
Trusting no man as his friend, he could not recognize his enemy when the latter actually appeared.
… for when a man’s spirit has been thoroughly crushed, he may be peevish at small offenses, but never resentful of great ones.
Strength is incomprehensible by weakness, and, therefore, the more terrible.
Pluck up a spirit, and do not be all the time sighing and murmuring!
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.
That old woman taught me my catechism!” said the young man; and there was a world of meaning in this simple comment.
Shall we never never get rid of this Past? … It lies upon the Present like a giant’s dead body.
Unfathomable to mere mortals is the lore of fiends.
Preach! Write! Act! Do any thing, save to lie down and die!
Cannot you conceive that another man may wish well to the world and struggle for its good on some other plan than precisely that which you have laid down?
…Chillingworth was a striking evidence of man’s faculty of transforming himself into a devil, if he will only, for a reasonable space of time, undertake a devil’s office.
To the untrue man, the whole universe is false–it is impalpable–it shrinks to nothing within his grasp.
A bachelor always feels himself defrauded, when he knows or suspects that any woman of his acquaintance has given herself away.
She has lived and loved! There is no folded petal, no latent dewdrop, in this perfectly developed rose!
…such loss of faith is ever one of the saddest results of sin.
O Fiend, whose talisman was that fatal symbol, wouldst thou leave nothing, whether in youth or age, for this poor sinner to revere?—such loss of faith is ever one of the saddest results of sin.
All brave men love; for he only is brave who has affections to fight for, whether in the daily battle of life, or in physical contests.
That Jim Crow there in the window,” answered the urchin, holding out a cent, and pointing to the gingerbread figure that had attracted his notice, as he loitered along to school; “the one that has not a broken foot.
I have come to see the nonsense of trying to describe fine scenery.
Nothing gives a sadder sense of decay than this loss or suspension of the power to deal with unaccustomed things, and to keep up with the swiftness of the passing moment. [Speaking of self-posed isolation in old age.]
But year after year that summons, unheard but felt, was disobeyed. His one secret thought became like a chain binding down his spirit and like a serpent gnawing into his heart.
What’s that you mutter to yourself, Matthew Maule?” asked Scicpio. “And what for do you look so black at me?””No matter, darky,” said the carpenter. “Do you think nobody is to look black but yourself?
The horrible ugliness of this exposure of a sick and guilty heart to the very eye that would gloat over it!
And Pearl, stepping in, mid-leg deep, beheld her own white feet at the bottom, while out of a still lower depth came the gleam of a kind of fragmentary smile, floating to and fro in the agitated water.
Jim Crow, moreover, was seen executing his world-renowned dance, in gingerbread.
Might and wrong combined, like iron magnetized, are endowed with irresistible attraction.
A few feathery flakes are scattered widely through the air, and hover downward with uncertain flight, now almost alighting on the earth, now whirled again aloft into remote regions of the atmosphere.
Happiness is a butterfly which when pursued is always beyond our grasp but if you will sit down quietly may alight upon you.
Happiness is a butterfly which when pursued is always just beyond your grasp but which if you will sit down quietly may alight upon you.
Selfishness is one of the qualities apt to inspire love.
The world owes all its onward impulses to men ill at ease. The happy man inevitably confines himself within ancient limits.
It is very queer, but not the less true, that people are generally quite as vain, or even more so, of their deficiencies than of their available gifts.
Every individual has a place to fill in the world and is important in some respect whether he chooses to be so or not.
Happiness is a butterfly, which when pursued, is always just beyond your grasp, but which, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.
Selfishness is one of the qualities apt to inspire love.
Love, whether newly born, or aroused from a deathlike slumber, must always create sunshine, filling the heart so full of radiance, this it overflows upon the outward world.
Our most intimate friend is not he to whom we show the worst, but the best of our nature.
In our nature, however, there is a provision, alike marvelous and merciful, that the sufferer should never know the intensity of what he endures by its present torture, but chiefly by the pang that rankles after it.
We sometimes congratulate ourselves at the moment of waking from a troubled dream it may be so the moment after death.
The only sensible ends of literature are, first, the pleasurable toil of writing; second, the gratification of one’s family and friends; and lastly, the solid cash.
Religion and art spring from the same root and are close kin. Economics and art are strangers.
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 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.
Caresses, expressions of one sort or another, are necessary to the life of the affections as leaves are to the life of a tree. If they are wholly restrained, love will die at the roots.
Nobody, I think, ought to read poetry, or look at pictures or statues, who cannot find a great deal more in them than the poet or artist has actually expressed. Their highest merit is suggestiveness.
The world owes all its onward impulses to men ill at ease. The happy man inevitably confines himself within ancient limits.