17 quotes
The sound of a kiss is not so loud as that of a cannon, but its echo lasts a deal longer.
The Professor at the Breakfast Table (1859)
The real religion of the world comes from women much more than from men, — from mothers most of all, who carry the key of our souls in their bosoms.
The Professor at the Breakfast Table (1859)
Truth is tough. It will not break, like a bubble, at a touch; nay, you may kick it about all day, like a football, and it will be round and full at evening.
The Professor at the Breakfast Table (1859)
Why can't somebody give us a list of things that everybody thinks and nobody says, and another list of things that everybody says and nobody thinks?
The Professor at the Breakfast Table (1859)
Beauty is the index of a larger fact than wisdom.
The Professor at the Breakfast Table (1859)
Time, time only, can gradually wean us from our Epeolatry, or word-worship, by spiritualizing our ideas of the thing signified.
The Professor at the Breakfast Table (1859)
Lord of all being, thronèd afar,
Thy glory flames from sun and star;
Center and soul of every sphere,
Yet to each loving heart how near!
The Professor at the Breakfast Table (1859)
What a blessed thing it is, that Nature, when she invented, manufactured, and patented her authors, contrived to make critics out of the chips that were left!
The Professor at the Breakfast Table (1859)
Most persons have died before they expire, — died to all earthly longings, so that the last breath is only, as it were, the locking of the door of the already deserted mansion.
The Professor at the Breakfast Table (1859)
Nobody talks much that doesn't say unwise things, — things he did not mean to say; as no person plays much without striking a false note sometimes.
The Professor at the Breakfast Table (1859)
Whatever comes from the brain carries the hue of the place it came from, and whatever comes from the heart carries the heat and color of its birthplace.
The Professor at the Breakfast Table (1859)
You hear that boy laughing?—you think he’s all fun;
But the angels laugh, too, at the good he has done;
The children laugh loud as they troop to his call,
And the poor man that knows him laughs loudest of all.
The Professor at the Breakfast Table (1859)
On Thee we fling our burdening woe,
O love Divine, forever dear:
Content to suffer, while we know,
Living and dying, Thou art near!
The Professor at the Breakfast Table (1859)
Grant us Thy truth to make us free,
And kindling hearts that burn for Thee,
Till all Thy living altars claim
One holy light, one heavenly flame.
The Professor at the Breakfast Table (1859)
Poets are never young, in one sense. Their delicate ear hears the far-off whispers of eternity, which coarser souls must travel towards for scores of years before their dull sense is touched by them. A moment's insight is sometimes worth a life's experience.
The Professor at the Breakfast Table (1859)
You don't know, perhaps, but I will tell you; the brain is the palest of all the internal organs, and the heart the reddest. Whatever comes from the brain carries the hue of the place it came from, and whatever comes from the heart carries the heat and color of its birthplace.
The Professor at the Breakfast Table (1859)
We must have a weak spot or two in a character before we can love it much. People that do not laugh or cry, or take more of anything than is good for them, or use anything but dictionary-words, are admirable subjects for biographies. But we don't care most for those flat pattern flowers that press best in the herbarium.
The Professor at the Breakfast Table (1859)