A barking dog is often more useful than a sleeping lion.

After all, it is the divinity within that makes the divinity without; and I have been more fascinated by a woman of talent and intelligence, though deficient in personal charms, than I have been by...

He is indeed the true enchanter, whose spell operates, not upon the senses, but upon the imagination and the heart.

Honest good humor is the oil and wine of a merry meeting, and there is no jovial companionship equal to that where the jokes are rather small and laughter abundant.

The natural principle of war is to do the most harm to our enemy with the least harm to ourselves; and this of course is to be effected by stratagem.

Great minds have purposes; others have wishes.

An inexhaustible good nature is one of the most precious gifts of heaven, spreading itself like oil over the troubled sea of thought, and keeping the mind smooth and equable in the roughest weather.

A woman’s whole life is a history of the affections. The heart is her world: it is there her ambition strives for empire; it is there her avarice seeks for hidden treasures. She sends forth...

There is nothing in England that exercises a more delightful spell over my imagination than the lingerings of the holiday customs and rural games of former times. They recall the pictures my fancy used to...

There is a sacredness in tears. They are not the mark of weakness but of power. They are messengers of overwhelming grief and of unspeakable love.

I am always at a loss at how much to believe of my own stories.

The easiest thing to do, whenever you fail, is to put yourself down by blaming your lack of ability for your misfortunes.

There is never jealousy where there is not strong regard

Ay, go to the grave of buried love and meditate! There settle the account with thy conscience for every past benefit unrequited – every past endearment unregarded, of that departed being, who can never, never,...

Christmas is a season for kindling the fire for hospitality in the hall, the genial flame of charity in the heart.

It is not poverty so much as pretense that harasses a ruined man – the struggle between a proud mind and an empty purse – the keeping up of a hollow show that must soon...

For my part, I love to give myself up to the illusion of poetry. A hero of fiction that never existed is just as valuable to me as a hero of history that existed a...

Little minds are tamed and subdued by misfortune; but great minds rise above them.

…ducks and geese are foolish things, and must be looked after, but girls can take care of themselves.

Society is like a lawn where every roughness is smoothed, every bramble eradicated, and where the eye is delighted by the smiling verdure of a velvet surface

There is a serene and settled majesty to woodland scenery that enters into the soul and delights and elevates it, and fills it with noble inclinations.

They who drink beer will think beer.

Those men are most apt to be obsequious and conciliating abroad, who are under the discipline of shrews at home.

Some minds corrode and grow inactive under the loss of personal liberty; others grow morbid and irritable; but it is the nature of the poet to become tender and imaginitive in the loneliness of confinement....

Rising genius always shoots out its rays from among the clouds, but these will gradually roll away and disappear as it ascends to its steady luster.

Christmas is the season for kindling the fire of hospitality in the hall, the genial flame of charity in the heart.

Youth fades; love droops; the leaves of friendship fall; a mother’s secret hope outlives them all!

. . . he would have passed a pleasant life of it, in despite of the Devil and all his works, if his path had not been crossed by a being that causes more perplexity...

To look upon its grass grown yard, where the sunbeams seem to sleep so quietly, one would think that there at least the dead might rest in peace.

Great minds have purposes; little minds have wishes. Little minds are subdued by misfortunes; great minds rise above them.

The great British Library –an immense collection of volumes of all ages and languages, many of which are now forgotten, and most of which are seldom read: one of these sequestered pools of obsolete literature...

Great minds have purpose, others have wishes. Little minds are tamed and subdued by misfortunes; but great minds rise above them.

Temper never mellows with age, and a sharp tongue is the only edged tool that grows keener with constant use.

How easy is it for one benevolent being to diffuse pleasure around him, and how truly is a kind heart a fountain of gladness, making everything in its vicinity to freshen into smiles.

The grate had been removed from the wide overwhelming fireplace, to make way for a fire of wood, in the midst of which was an enormous log glowing and blazing, and sending forth a vast...

One of the greatest and simplest tools for learning more and growing is doing more.

The sorrow for the dead is the only sorrow from which we refuse to be divorced. Every other wound we seek to heal – every other affliction to forget; but this wound we consider it...

Marriage is the torment of one, the felicity of two, the strife and enmity of three.

I’ve had it with you and your emotional constipation!

The scholar only knows how dear these silent, yet eloquent, companions of pure thoughts and innocent hours become in the season of adversity. When all that is worldly turns to dross around us, these only...

The natural effect of sorrow over the dead is to refine and elevate the mind.

No! no! My engagement is with no bride–the worms! the worms expect me! I am a dead man–I have been slain by robbers–my body lies at Wurtzburg–at midnight I am to be buried–the grave is...

A father may turn his back on his child, brothers and sisters may become inveterate enemies, husbands may desert their wives, wives their husbands. But a mother’s love endures through all.

There is certain relief in change, even though it be from bad to worse! As I have often found in traveling in a stagecoach, that it is often a comfort to shift one’s position, and...

Others may write from the head, but he writes from the heart, and the heart will always understand him.

The idol of today pushes the hero of yesterday out of our recollection; and will, in turn, be supplanted by his successor of tomorrow.

A woman’s life is a history of the affections

I profess not to know how women’s hearts are wooed and won. To me they have always been matters of riddle and admiration.

There is in every true woman’s heart, a spark of heavenly fire, which lies dormant in the broad daylight of prosperity, but which kindles up and beams and blazes in the dark hour of adversity.

It is almost startling to hear this warning of departed time sounding among the tombs, and telling the lapse of the hour, which, like a billow, has rolled us onward towards the grave.