6 quotes
The human mind is always inexorable in demanding a motive for all human actions. It is only himself that each man permits to act without one, and avails himself of the privilege with astonishing frequency.
Sarah de Berenger: A Novel (1879)
Divine Love came down to take on itself our sins, but there is no Saviour to do the like for our mistakes.
Sarah de Berenger: A Novel (1879)
[H]e could not escape thinking of her, being the slave for the moment of every pretty girl. Good young men generally are.
Sarah de Berenger: A Novel (1879)
[H]e was a graduate in nature's university. Nature is wiser than the schoolmaster; she educates but she never crams. Her scholars do not go up to take their degrees; their degrees come to them.
Sarah de Berenger: A Novel (1879)
There can be little doubt that it is the fools, and not the wise, who govern the world. While the wise are considering, the fools act; while the wise investigate, the fools have made up their minds; by the time the wise have discovered, the fools have made arrangements, and the wise, for the sake of law and order, or, if not, for the sake of peace and quietness, are obliged to give way.
Sarah de Berenger: A Novel (1879)
Every right and natural responsibility of which you relieve a man, taking it on yourself, makes him less able to bear those responsibilities that nothing can relieve him of. If you could take all his duties from him, as we sometimes do, it would only make it certain that he would not then even do his duty by himself.
Sarah de Berenger: A Novel (1879)