Blessed is the man, who having nothing to say, abstains from giving wordy evidence of the fact.

Our deeds still travel with us from afar/And what we have been makes us what we are.

And certainly, the mistakes that we male and female mortals make when we have our own way might fairly raise some wonder that we are so fond of it.

In old days there were angels who came and took men by the hand and led them away from the city of destruction. We see no white-winged angels now. But yet men are led away...

If you had a table spread for a feast, and was making merry with your friends, you would think it was kind to let me come and sit down and rejoice with you, because you’d...

Nothing is so good as it seems beforehand.

You must mind and not lower the Church in people’s eyes by seeming to be frightened about it for such a little thing.

Wear a smile and have friends; wear a scowl and have wrinkles. What do we live for if not to make the world less difficult for each other?

Friendships begin with liking or gratitude roots that can be pulled up.

Of what use, however, is a general certainty that an insect will not walk with his head hindmost, when what you need to know is the play of inward stimulus that sends him hither and...

What quarrel, what harshness, what unbelief in each other can subsist in the presence of a great calamity, when all the artificial vesture of our life is gone, and we are all one with each...

That quiet mutual gaze of a trusting husband and wife is like the first moment of rest or refuge from a great weariness or a great danger–not to be interfered with by speech or action...

The growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistorical acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who...

Tis God gives skill, but not without men’s hand: He could not make Antonio Stradivarius’s violins without Antonio

Blows are sarcasms turned stupid

An election is coming. Universal peace is declared, and the foxes have a sincere interest in prolonging the lives of the poultry.

If we had lost our own chief good, other people’s good would remain, and that is worth trying for.

Poor fellow! I think he is in love with you.’I am not aware of it. And to me it is one of the most odious things in a girl’s life, that there must always be...

In bitter manuscript remarks on other men’s notions about solar deities, he had become indifferent to the sunlight.

Passion is of the nature of seed, and finds nourishment within, tending to a predominance which determines all currents towards itself, and makes the whole life its tributary.

Destiny stands by sarcastic with our dramatis personae folded in her hand.

A man vows, and yet will not east away the means of breaking his vow. Is it that he distinctly means to break it? Not at all; but the desires which tend to break it...

Mortals are easily tempted to pinch the life out of their neighbor’s buzzing glory, and think that such killing is no murder.

One must be poor to know the luxury of giving

A mother’s yearning feels the presence of the cherished child even in the degraded man.

The strongest principle of growth lies in human choice.

In all private quarrels the duller nature is triumphant by reason of dullness

Opposition may become sweet to a man when he has christened it persecution

We must find our duties in what comes to us, not in what might have been.

There is a sort of subjection which is the peculiar heritage of largeness and of love; and strength is often only another name for willing bondage to irremediable weakness.

Breed is stronger than pasture

Would not love see returning penitence afar off, and fall on its neck and kiss it?

He sat watching what went forward with the quiet outward glance of healthy old age.

She was no longer struggling against the perception of facts, but adjusting herself to their clearest perception.

I should be glad to see a good change in anybody, Mr. Godfrey.’ she answered, with the slightest discernible difference of tone, ‘but it ‘ud be better if no change was wanted.

In bed our yesterdays are too oppressive: if a man can only get up, though it be but to whistle or to smoke, he has a present which offers some resistance to the past—sensations which...

If we had a keen vision and feeling of all ordinary human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow and the squirrel’s heart beat, and we should die of that roar which lies...

I’ve always felt that your belongings have never been on a level with you.

We have all got to exert ourselves a little to keep sane, and call things by the same names as other people call them by.

Gossip is a sort of smoke that comes from the dirty tobacco-pipes of those who diffuse it: it proves nothing but the bad taste of the smoker.

I’ve never any pity for conceited people, because I think they carry their comfort about with them

It will never rain roses: when we want to have more roses we must plant more trees.

It is a common enough case, that of a man being suddenly captivated by a woman nearly the opposite of his ideal.

Every woman is supposed to have the same set of motives, or else to be a monster.

An age at which many men are not quite common – at which they are hopeful of achievement, resolute in avoidance, thinking that Mammon shall never put a bit in their mouths and get astride...

The beginning of compunction is the beginning of a new life.

A toddling little girl is a centre of common feeling which makes the most dissimilar people understand each other.

(visions) of strange cities, of sandy plains, of gigantic ruins, of midnight skies with strange bright constellations, of mountain-passes, of grassy nooks flecked with the afternoon sunshine through the boughs: I was in the midst...

O may I join the choir invisibleOf those immortal dead who live againIn minds made better by their presence; liveIn pulses stirred to generosity,In deeds of daring rectitude…

Let even an affectionate Goliath get himself tied to a small tender thing, dreading to hurt it by pulling, and dreading still more to snap the cord, and which of the two, pray, will be...