Oh, what a tangled web we weave…when first we practice to deceive.

All men who have turned out worth anything have had the chief hand in their own education.

It was woman that taught me cruelty, and on woman therefore I have exercised it.

A Christmas gambol oft could cheerThe poor man’s heart through half the year.

We shall never learn to feel and respect our real calling and destiny, unless we have taught ourselves to consider every thing as moonshine, compared with the education of the heart.

The wretch, concentred all in self,Living, shall forfeit fair renown,And, doubly dying, shall go downTo the vile dust, from whence he sprung,Unwept, unhonored, and unsung.

Perhaps the perusal of such works may, without injustice, be compared with the use of opiates, baneful, when habitually and constantly resorted to, but of most blessed power in those moments of pain and of...

Besides, Rose Bradwardine, beautiful and amiable as we have described her, had not precisely the sort of beauty or merit which captivates a romantic imagination in early youth. She was too frank, too confiding, too...

In the wide pile, by others heeded not,Hers was one sacred solitary spot,Whose gloomy aisles and bending shelves containFor moral hunger food, and cures for moral pain.

No word of commiseration can make a burden feel one feather’s weight lighter to the slave who must carry it.

Teach self denial and make its practice pleasure, and you can create for the world a destiny more sublime that ever issued from the brain of the wildest dreamer.

Cats are a mysterious kind of folk.

PatriotismBreathes there the man with soul so dead, Who never to himself hath said, ‘This is my own, my native land!’ Whose heart hath ne’er within him burn’d As home his footsteps he hath turn’dFrom...

I will tear this folly from my heart, though every fibre bleed as I rend it away!

Look back, and smile on perils past!

Love rules the court, the camp, the grove, and men below, and the saints above, for love is heaven, and heaven is love.

Those who remarked in the countenance of this young hero a dissolute audacity mingled with extreme haughtiness … could not yet deny to his countenance that sort of comeliness which belongs to an open set...

I did not myself set a high estimation on wealth, and had the affectation of most young men of lively imagination, who suppose that they can better dispense with the possession of money, than resign...

Oh, many a shaft at random sentFinds mark the archer little meant!And many a word at random spokenMay soothe, or wound, a heart that’s broken!

We are like the herb which flourisheth most when trampled upon

I have sometimes thought of the final cause of dogs having such short lives and I am quite satisfied it is in compassion to the human race; for if we suffer so much in losing...

Meantime the clang of the bows and the shouts of the combatants mixed fearfully with the sound of the trumpets, and drowned the groans of those who fell, and lay rolling defenceless beneath the feet...

Is death the last sleep? No, it is the last and final awakening.

Breathes there the man with soul so dead, Who never to himself hath said, This is my own, my native land.

Craigengelt, you are either an honest fellow in right good earnest, and I scarce know how to believe that; or you are cleverer than I took you for, and I scarce know how to believe...

Wounds sustained for the sake of conscience carry their own balsam with the blow.

I pretend not to be a champion of that same naked virtue called truth, to the very outrance. I can consent that her charms be hidden with a veil, were it but for decency’s sake.

He seems, in manner and rank, above the class of young men who take that turn; but I remember hearing them say, that the little theatre at Fairport was to open with the performance of...

Many a law, many a commandment have I broken, but my word never.

Fight on, brave knights! Man dies, but glory lives! Fight on; death is better than defeat! Fight on brave knights! for bright eyes behold your deeds!

One hour of life, crowded to the full with glorious action, and filled with noble risks, is worth whole years of those mean observances of paltry decorum

Revenge, the sweetest morsel to the mouth that ever was cooked in hell.

My hope, my heaven, my trust must be,My gentle guide, in following thee.

Thou hast had thty day, old dame, but thy sun has long been set. Thou art now the very emblem of an old warhorse turned out on the barren heath; thou hast had thy paces...

Revenge is a feast for thegods!