All Quotes

"The assertion that “What is everybody’s business is nobody’s,” is true enough; but the assertion that “What is nobody’s business is everybody’s,” is still truer. Now, a love affair, for example, is, of all others, a thing apart--an enchanted dream, where “common griefs and cares come not.” It is like a matrimonial quarrel--never to be benefited by the interference of others: it is a sweet and subtle language, “that none understand but the speakers;” and yet this fine and delicate spirit is most especially the object of public curiosity. It is often supposed before it exists: it is taken for granted, commented upon, continued and ended, without the consent of the parties themselves; though a casual observer might suppose that they were the most interested in the business."

"I own that I have known greater misfortunes in life than that a young gentleman and lady of twenty should have to wait a twelve-month before they were married; but every person considers their own the worst that ever happened..."

"Where had thy life been at this hour, Had not my Love been more than my Power ? — Away, if thou fearest, — love never must, Never can live with one shade of distrust."

"Sir Walter Scott was the Luther of literature. He reformed and he regenerated. To say that he founded a new school is not saying the whole truth ; for there is something narrow in the idea of a school, and his influence has been universal. Indeed, there is no such thing as a school in literature ; each great writer is his own original, and "none but himself can be his parallel." We hear of the school of Dryden and of Pope, but where and what are their imitators ? Parnassus is the very reverse of Mont Blanc. There the summit is gained by treading closely in the steps of the guides ; but in the first, the height is only to be reached by a pathway of our own. The influence of a genius like Scott's is shown by the fresh and new spirit he pours into literature."

"I own it gave my picturesque fancies at first a shock, to hear of a steam-boat on Loch Katrine ; but I was wrong. Nothing could be a more decisive proof of the increased communication between England and Scotland — and communication is the regal road to improvement of every kind."

"But the dwellers in the country have little understanding of, and therefore little sympathy with, the longing for green fields which haunts the dweller in towns. The secret dream of almost every inhabitant in those dusky streets where even a fresh thought would scarcely seem to enter, is to realise an independence, and go and live in the country. Where is every holiday spent but in the country ! What do the smoky geraniums, so carefully tended in many a narrow street and blind alley attest, but the inherent love of the country ! To whom do the blooming and sheltered villas, which are a national feature in English landscape, belong, but to men who pass the greater part of their lives in small dim counting-houses ! This love of nature is divinely given to keep alive, even in the most toiling and world-worn existence, something of the imaginative and the apart. It is a positive good quality ; and one good quality has some direct, or indirect tendency to produce another."

"There is no attachment stronger, more unselfish, than the love between brother and sister, thrown on the world orphans at an early age, with none to love them save each other. They feel how much they stand alone, and this draws them more together. Constant intercourse has given that perfect understanding which only familiarity can do ; hopes, interests, sorrows, are alike in common. Each is to either a source of pride ; it is the tenderness of love without its fears, and the confidence of marriage, without its graver and more anxious character. The fresh impulses of youth are all warm about the heart."

"It is a fearful responsibility, the exercise of influence : let our own conduct bring its own consequences — we may well meet the worst; not so when we have led another to pursue any given line of action : if they suffer, how tenfold is that suffering visited on ourselves !"

"It is a curious thing, after years have elapsed, to go back upon the pages of a favourite author. Nothing shows us more forcibly the change that has taken place in ourselves. The book is a mental mirror — the mind starts from its own face, so much freshness, and so much fire has passed away. The colours and the light of youth have gone together. The judgment of the man rarely confirms that of the boy. What was once sweet has become mawkish, and the once exquisite simile appears little more than an ingenious conceit. The sentiment which the heart once beat to applaud has now no answering key-note within, and the real is perpetually militating against the imagined. It is a great triumph to the poet when we return to the volume, and find that our early creed was, after all, the true religion."

"Not to have your house burned over your head for a twelvemonth seems an unwonted piece of domestic quiet."

"Byron idealised and expressed that bitter spirit of discontent which has at the present moment taken a more material and tangible form. He is the incarnation of November. From time immemorial it has been an Englishman's privilege to grumble, and Byron gave picturesque language to the universal feeling."

"It is the strangest problem of humanity — one too, for which the closest investigation can never quite account — to trace the progress by which innocence becomes guilt, and how those who formerly trembled to think of crime, are led on to commit that at which they once shuddered."

"It is a cruel proof of the want of generosity in human nature, that an affection too utterly self-sacrificing always meets with an evil return."

"But the passion of jealousy cannot exist without the passion of love, and is like its parent, creative, impetuous, and credulous."

"The sweetest and best qualities of our nature may be turned to evil, by the strong force of circumstance and of temptation."

"By-the-by, this doctrine of perpetual transmigration would be a curious plea to urge for the non-fulfilment of former engagements ; seven years is I believe the term allotted for the entire change. Now, might not a man encumbered with debt plead at the expiration of the period in the Courts of Westminster, that he was not the person who actually contracted those debts ? Or might not an inconstant couple sue for a divorce, on the plea that neither were the individuals who originally married ?"

"The history of most fictions would be far stranger than the fictions themselves ; but it would be a dark and sad chronicle."

"Literature soon becomes a power, not what it once was, a passion; but literary success, like all others, is only to be obtained, and retained, by labour — and labour and inclination do not always go together. Take all our most eminent writers, and the quantity of work, hard work, they have got through, will be found enormous and perpetual. Literature, as a profession, allows little leisure, and less indulgence."

"By turns the woman and the queen, And each as the other had never been."

"Her face was all too bright for tears, she gave Sighs to the wind, and weeping to the wave, And left a lesson unto after-times, Too little dwelt upon in minstrel rhymes, A lesson how inconstancy should be Repaid again by like inconstancy."

"Her heart and lip were music, albeit one Who marvell'd at what her sweet self had done; Who breathed for Love, and pined to find that Fame In answer to her lute's soft summons came; See, the eye droops in sadness, as to shun That which it dared not gaze on, Glory's sun."

"I stood between the meeting Years, The coming and the past, And I ask'd of the future one, Wilt thou be like the last?"

"O no, my heart can never be Again in lighted hopes the same — The love that lingers there for thee Has more of ashes than of flame."

"And when the reckless crowd among I speak of one sweet art, How lightly can I name the song, Which yet has wrung my heart ! That lute and heart alike have chords Not to be spoken of in words —"

"Hope is a timid thing, Fearful, and weak, and born in suffering; At least, such Hope as human life can bring."

"If blasted hopes and ruin'd name, And all the venom Love lends Shame — The violent death, and rabble eye, To look upon its agony ; If these are not enough to win A pardon for Earth's deadliest sin, Words will not, cannot! — never dare Tell me it may be won by prayer ! The coward prayer, the coward tear, Not from remorse wrung, but from fear!"

"Around his neck a ribbon clung, Close to his heart a picture hung : I saw the face — it was not mine ; I saw, too, a small dagger shine, A curious toy — you know the rest."

"Ah, the sweet present ! — should it not suffice ? Not to humanity, which vainly tries To lift the curtain that may never rise !"

"The Future is more present than the Past : For one look back, a thousand on we cast ; And hope doth ever memory outlast."

"In the east the day was reddening, When the warriors pass'd ; In the west the night was deadening, As they looked their last ; As they looked their last on him — He, their comrade — their commander — He, the earth's adored — He, the godlike Alexander ! Who can wield his sword ? As they went their eyes were dim, The silver-shielded warriors, The warriors of the world !"

"Experience has rude lessons, and we grow Like what we have been taught too late to know, And yet we hate ourselves for being so."

"As steals the dew along the flower, So stole thy smile on me ; I cannot tell the day, nor hour I first loved thee !"

"A word — a name — Conjures the past before me, till it grows More actual than the present : that — I see But with the common eyes of daily life, Imperfect and impatient ; but the past Out of imagination works its truth, And grows distinct with poetry."

"All the fairest things of earth, Art's creations have their birth — Still from love and death."

"It was hidden in a wild wood Of the larch and pine ; It had been unto his childhood Solitude and shrine, — There he dream'd the hours away."

"Like a marble statue placed, Looking o'er the watery waste, With its white fixed gaze ; There the Goddess sits, her eye Raised to the unpitying sky ;"

"She is but the type of all, Mortal or celestial, Who allow the heart, In its passion and its power, On some dark and fated hour, To assert its part."

"Well he knows his course has hasted Through delicious sin, Borne tumultuously along. Never have the stars above Chronicled such utter love."

"One sweet whisper from her came ; And he drank to catch her breath, — Wine and sigh alike are death !"

"Once the buds of the pomegranate Paled beside her cheek's warm dye, Now 'tis like the last sad planet Waning in the morning sky — She has wept away its red."

"Lone upon a mountain, the pine-trees wailing round him, Lone upon a mountain the Grecian youth is laid ; Sleep, mystic sleep, for many a year has bound him, Yet his beauty, like a statue's pale and fair, is undecay'd. When will he awaken ?"

"When every worldly thought is utterly forsaken, Comes the starry midnight, felt by life's gifted few; Then will the spirit from its earthly sleep awaken To a being more intense, more spiritual and true. So doth the soul awaken, Like that youth to night's fair queen !"

"They named him — ah ! yet Do I start at that name ;"

"Farewell, and when to-morrow Seems little, like to-day, And we find life's deepest sorrow Melts gradual away ; Yet do not quite forget me."

"A day may be a destiny ; for life Lives in but little— but that little teems With some one chance, the balance of all time"

"We might have been !— these are but common words, And yet they make the sum of life's bewailing;"

"We know not of its presence, though its power Be on the gradual round of every hour, Now flinging down an empire, now a flower."

"To dream and to create has been my fate, Alone, apart from life's more busy scheming ; I fear to think that I may find too late Vain was the toil, and idle was the dreaming."

"Lonely by the moonlit waters Does the conqueror stand, Yet unredden'd by the slaughters Of his mighty band. Yet his laurel wants a leaf. There he stands, sad, silent, lonely ; For his hope is vain : He has reached that river only To return again."

"Life is but the spirit's prison, Where its wings are furl'd, Stretching to their flight in vain, — Seeking that eternal home Which is in a world to come."