Top 132 Quotes & Sayings by Sophie Swetchine

We reform others unconsciously when we walk uprightly.

Youth should be a savings bank.

One must be a somebody before they can have a enemy. One must be a force before he can be resisted by another force.

Travel is the frivolous part of serious lives, and the serious part of frivolous ones.

In order to have an enemy, one must be somebody. One must be a force before he can be resisted by another force. A malicious enemy is better than a clumsy friend.

In this world of change, nothing which comes stays, and nothing which goes is lost.

Strength alone knows conflict, weakness is born vanquished.

There are two ways of attaining an important end, force and perseverance; the silent power of the latter grows irresistible with time.

The chains which cramp us most are those which weigh on us least.

The mind wears the colors of the soul, as a valet those of his master.

We deceive ourselves when we fancy that only weakness needs support. Strength needs it far more.

Repentance is accepted remorse.

The ideal friendship is to feel as one while remaining two.

Our vanity is the constant enemy of our dignity.

The best advice on the art of being happy is about as easy to follow as advice to be well when one is sick.

We expect everything and are prepared for nothing.

There are words which are worth as much as the best actions, for they contain the germ of them all.

To love deeply in one direction makes us more loving in all others.

Miracles are God's coups d'etat.

Let us resist the opinion of the world fearlessly, provided only that our self-respect grows in proportion to our indifference.

Kindness causes us to learn, and to forget, many things.

The only true method of action in this world is to be in it, but not of it.

We do not judge men by what they are in themselves, but by what they are relatively to us.

To have ideas is to gather flowers; to think is to weave them into garlands.

Love enters the heart unawares: takes precedence of all the emotions--or, at least, will be second to none--and even reflection becomes its accomplice. While it lives, it renders blind; and when it has struck its roots deep only itself can shake them. It reminds one of hospitality as practiced among the ancients. The stranger was received upon the threshold of the half-open door, and introduced into the sanctuary reserved for the Penates. Not until every attention had been lavished upon him did the host ask his name; and the question was sometimes deferred till the very moment of departure.

There are not good things enough in life to indemnify us for the neglect of a single duty.

Those who have suffered much are like those who know many languages; they have learned to understand and be understood by all.

In youth, grief comes with a rush and overflow, but it dries up, too, like the torrent. In the winter of life it remains a miserable pool, resisting all evaporation.

We are amused through the intellect, but it is the heart that saves us from ennui.

If grief is to be mitigated, it must either wear itself out or be shared.

We are often prophets to others only because we are our own historians.

We are always looking into the future, but we see only the past.

The most culpable of the excesses of Liberty is the harm she does herself.

As we advance in life the circle of our pains enlarges, while that of our pleasures contracts.

A friendship will be young after the lapse of half a century; a passion is old at the end of three months.

Love sometimes elevates, creates new qualities, suspends the working of evil inclinations; but only for a day. Love, then, is an Oriental despot, whose glance lifts a slave from the dust, and then consigns him to it again.

In youth we feel richer for every new illusion; in maturer years, for every one we lose.

We are rich only through what we give.

There is nothing at all in life, except what we put there.

There are questions so indiscreet, that they deserve neither truth nor falsehood in reply.

Only those faults which we encounter in ourselves are insufferable to us in others.

Feeling loves a subdued light.

The injustice of men subserves the justice of God, and often His mercy.

What I value most next to eternity is time.

There is nothing steadfast in life but our memories. We are sure of keeping intact only that which we have lost.

Let our lives be pure as snowfields, where our steps leave a mark but no stain.

In retirement, the passage of time seems accelerated. Nothing warns us of its flight. It is a wave which never murmurs, because there is no obstacle to its flow.

We are all of us, in this world, more or less like St. January, whom the inhabitants of Naples worship one day, and pelt with baked apples the next.

There is, by God's grace, an immeasurable distance between late and too late.

We recognize the action of God in great things: we exclude it in small. We forget that the Lord of eternity is also the Lord of the hour.

There are minds constructed like the eyes of certain insects, which discern, with admirable distinctness, the most delicate lineaments and finest veins of the leaf which bears them, but are totally unable to take in the ensemble of the plant or shrub. When error has effected an entrance into such minds, it remains there impregnable, because no general view assists them in throwing off the chance impression of the moment.

What is resignation? It is putting God between one's self and one's grief.

When we see the shameful fortunes amassed in all quarters of the globe, are we not impelled to exclaim that Judas' thirty pieces of silver have fructified across the centuries?

Impassioned characters never attain their mark till they have overshot it.

In a healthy state of the organism all wounds have a tendency to heal.

Poor humanity!--so dependent, so insignificant, and yet so great.

By becoming unhappy, we sometimes learn how to be less so.

There is a transcendent power in example.

Years do not make sages; they only make old men.

Old age is not one of the beauties of creation, but it is one of its harmonies.