Quotes

The whole series of my life appeared to me as a dream; I sometimes doubted if indeed it were all true, for it never presented itself to my mind with the force of reality.

To measure you by your smallest deed is to reckon the power of ocean by the frailty of its foam.

"Moon, for what do you wait?" "To salute the sun for whom I must make way."

It is time to separate unchangeable morals from local manners.

To know intense joy without a strong bodily frame, one must have an enthusiastic soul.

Never mind what happened just after that, for the full hearts overflowed, washing away the bitterness of the past and leaving only the sweetness of the present.

There were barriers still, it is true, but barriers that could in time be swept away.

Though conscious of the difficulty of learning without a teacher, I set out with high hope, and a fixed purpose, at whatever cost of trouble, to learn how to read.

The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible.

Every man's happiness depends from himself, but behold thy life is almost at an end, whiles affording thyself no respect, thou dost make thy happiness to consist in the souls, and conceits of other men.

When you set about any action, remind yourself of what nature the action is.

There is nothing in the world more soft and weak than water, and yet for attacking things that are firm and strong there is nothing that can take precedence of it;--for there is nothing (so effectual) for which it can be changed.

The finest qualities of our nature, like the bloom on fruits, can be preserved only by the most delicate handling.

No man is quite sane; each has a vein of folly in his composition, a slight determination of blood to the head, to make sure of holding him hard to some one point which nature had taken to heart.

There are few people whom I really love, and still fewer of whom I think well.

I thought of the promise of virtues which he had displayed on the opening of his existence and the subsequent blight of all kindly feeling by the loathing and scorn which his protectors had manifested towards him.

You are good when you are one with yourself.

O Beauty, find thyself in love, not in the flattery of thy mirror.