Sophie Swetchine
Travel is the frivolous part of serious lives, and the serious part of frivolous ones.Collection: Travel
We deceive ourselves when we fancy that only weakness needs support. Strength needs it far more.Collection: Strength
There are two ways of attaining an important end, force and perseverance; the silent power of the latter grows irresistible with time.Collection: Power
The ideal friendship is to feel as one while remaining two.Collection: Friendship
We reform others unconsciously when we walk uprightly.Collection: Reform
There is a transcendent power in example.Collection: Example
In youth we feel richer for every new illusion; in maturer years, for every one we lose.Collection: Honesty
We are rich only through what we give.Collection: Giving
Poor humanity!--so dependent, so insignificant, and yet so great.Collection: Humanity
To have ideas is to gather flowers; to think is to weave them into garlands.Collection: Flower
Let us resist the opinion of the world fearlessly, provided only that our self-respect grows in proportion to our indifference.Collection: Self
The only true method of action in this world is to be in it, but not of it.Collection: World
We recognize the action of God in great things: we exclude it in small. We forget that the Lord of eternity is also the Lord of the hour.Collection: God
There is nothing at all in life, except what we put there.Collection: Life
There is, by God's grace, an immeasurable distance between late and too late.Collection: Distance
We are all of us, in this world, more or less like St. January, whom the inhabitants of Naples worship one day, and pelt with baked apples the next.Collection: Apples
Youth should be a savings bank.Collection: Saving
Kindness causes us to learn, and to forget, many things.Collection: Kindness
As we advance in life the circle of our pains enlarges, while that of our pleasures contracts.Collection: Pain
A friendship will be young after the lapse of half a century; a passion is old at the end of three months.Collection: Friendship
There are minds constructed like the eyes of certain insects, which discern, with admirable distinctness, the most delicate lineaments and finest veins of the leaf which bears them, but are totally unable to take in the ensemble of the plant or shrub. When error has effected an entrance into such minds, it remains there impregnable, because no general view assists them in throwing off the chance impression of the moment.Collection: Eye
Love sometimes elevates, creates new qualities, suspends the working of evil inclinations; but only for a day. Love, then, is an Oriental despot, whose glance lifts a slave from the dust, and then consigns him to it again.Collection: Love
In youth, grief comes with a rush and overflow, but it dries up, too, like the torrent. In the winter of life it remains a miserable pool, resisting all evaporation.Collection: Grief
The chains which cramp us most are those which weigh on us least.Collection: Cramps
When we see the shameful fortunes amassed in all quarters of the globe, are we not impelled to exclaim that Judas' thirty pieces of silver have fructified across the centuries?Collection: Pieces
There are not good things enough in life to indemnify us for the neglect of a single duty.Collection: Enough
If grief is to be mitigated, it must either wear itself out or be shared.Collection: Grief
Truth only is prolific. Error, sterile in itself, produces only by means of the portion of truth which it contains. It may have offspring, but the life which it gives, like that of the hybrid races, cannot be transmitted.Collection: Mean
We are always looking into the future, but we see only the past.Collection: Future
To love deeply in one direction makes us more loving in all others.Collection: Love
Years do not make sages; they only make old men.Collection: Men
Feeling loves a subdued light.Collection: Light
Only those faults which we encounter in ourselves are insufferable to us in others.Collection: Encounters
By becoming unhappy, we sometimes learn how to be less so.Collection: Unhappy
There are questions so indiscreet, that they deserve neither truth nor falsehood in reply.Collection: Deserve
What I value most next to eternity is time.Collection: Inspirational
We do not judge men by what they are in themselves, but by what they are relatively to us.Collection: Character
We expect everything and are prepared for nothing.Collection: Expectations
There is nothing steadfast in life but our memories. We are sure of keeping intact only that which we have lost.Collection: Memories
Old age is not one of the beauties of creation, but it is one of its harmonies.Collection: Age
Impassioned characters never attain their mark till they have overshot it.Collection: Ambition
What is resignation? It is putting God between one's self and one's grief.Collection: Grief
Love enters the heart unawares: takes precedence of all the emotions--or, at least, will be second to none--and even reflection becomes its accomplice. While it lives, it renders blind; and when it has struck its roots deep only itself can shake them. It reminds one of hospitality as practiced among the ancients. The stranger was received upon the threshold of the half-open door, and introduced into the sanctuary reserved for the Penates. Not until every attention had been lavished upon him did the host ask his name; and the question was sometimes deferred till the very moment of departure.Collection: Love
The best advice on the art of being happy is about as easy to follow as advice to be well when one is sick.Collection: Happiness
Repentance is accepted remorse.Collection: Accepted
The most culpable of the excesses of Liberty is the harm she does herself.Collection: Liberty
Strength alone knows conflict, weakness is born vanquished.Collection: Strength
Miracles are God's coups d'etat.Collection: Miracle
Let our lives be pure as snowfields, where our steps leave a mark but no stain.Collection: Steps
Those who have suffered much are like those who know many languages; they have learned to understand and be understood by all.Collection: Gratitude