284 quotes
There is more of good nature than of good sense at the bottom of most marriages.
Attributed Pearls of Thought (1881)
What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by achieving your goals.
Misattributed
Nothing makes the earth seem so spacious as to have friends at a distance; they make the latitudes and longitudes.
Attributed Pearls of Thought (1881)
The present hour is always wealthiest when it is poorer than the future ones, as that is the pleasantest site which affords the pleasantest prospect.
Attributed Pearls of Thought (1881)
Even the best things are not equal to their fame.
Attributed Pearls of Thought (1881)
What is commonly called friendship even is only a little more honor among rogues.
Attributed Pearls of Thought (1881)
Truth never turns to rebuke falsehood; her own straightforwardness is the severest correction.
Attributed Pearls of Thought (1881)
She with one breath attunes the spheres,
And also my poor human heart.
Attributed
Truths and roses have thorns about them.
Misattributed
Love is a severe critic. Hate can pardon more than love.
Attributed Pearls of Thought (1881)
The heavens are as deep as our aspirations are high.
Attributed
We are not that we are, nor do we treat or esteem each other for such, but for that we are capable of being.
Attributed Pearls of Thought (1881)
Our sadness is not sad, but our cheap joys.
Attributed Pearls of Thought (1881)
There is no rule more invariable than that we are paid for our suspicions by finding what we suspect.
Attributed Pearls of Thought (1881)
Wealth is the ability to fully experience life.
Misattributed
Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.
Misattributed
Homeliness is almost as great a merit in a book as in a house, if the reader would abide there. It is next to beauty, and a very high art.
Attributed Pearls of Thought (1881)
The language of excitement is at best but picturesque merely. You must be calm before you can utter oracles.
Attributed Pearls of Thought (1881)
Happiness is like a butterfly: the more you chase it, the more it will elude you. But if you turn your attention to other things, it will come and sit softly on your shoulder.
Misattributed
It is the slowest pulsation which is the most vital. The hero will then know how to wait, as well as to make haste. All good abides with him who waiteth wisely.
Attributed Pearls of Thought (1881)