10 quotes
What we call evil, is the only and best shape, which, for the person and his condition at the time, could be assumed by the best good.
Phantastes (1858)
Why are all reflections lovelier than what we call the reality? — not so grand or so strong, it may be, but always lovelier?
Phantastes (1858)
Benefits conferred awaken love in some minds, as surely as benefits received in others.
Phantastes (1858)
There is no cheating in nature and the simple unsought feelings of the soul. There must be a truth involved in it, though we may but in part lay hold of the meaning.
Phantastes (1858)
Endurance must conquer, where force could not reach.
Phantastes (1858)
Alas! how easily things go wrong!
A sigh too deep or a kiss too long,
And then comes a mist and a weeping rain,
And life is never the same again.
Phantastes (1858)
That is always the way with you men; you believe nothing the first time; and it is foolish enough to let mere repetition convince you of what you consider in itself unbelievable.
Phantastes (1858)
What distressed me most — more even than my own folly — was the perplexing question, How can beauty and ugliness dwell so near?
Phantastes (1858)
Afterwards I learned, that the best way to manage some kinds of painful thoughts, is to dare them to do their worst; to let them lie and gnaw at your heart till they are tired; and you find you still have a residue of life they cannot kill.
Phantastes (1858)
It is better, a thousand-fold, for a proud man to fall and be humbled, than to hold up his head in his pride and fancied innocence. I learned that he that will be a hero, will barely be a man; that he that will be nothing but a doer of his work, is sure of his manhood.
Phantastes (1858)