Top 132 Quotes & Sayings by Sophie Swetchine - Page 2

The inventory of my faith for this lower world is soon made out. I believe in Him who made it.

Might we not say to the confused voices which sometimes arise from the depths of our being: "Ladies, be so kind as to speak only four at a time?"

I study much, and the more I study, the oftener I go back to those first principles which are so simple that childhood itself can lisp them.

A malicious enemy is better than a clumsy friend.

It would seem that by our sorrows only are we called to a knowledge of the Infinite. Are we happy? The limits of life constrain us on all sides.

America has begun her career at the culminating point of life, as Adam did at the age of thirty.

We must labor unceasingly to render our piety reasonable, and our reason pious.

Piety softens all that courage bears.

Pride dries the tears of anger and vexation; humility, those of grief. The one is indignant that we should suffer; the other calms us by the reminder that we deserve nothing else.

Time is the shower of Danae; each drop is golden.

It is a little stream, which flows softly, but freshens everything along its course.

I love victory, but I love not triumph.

Real sorrow is almost as difficult to discover as real poverty. An instinctive delicacy hides the rays of the one and the wounds of the other.

If we look closely at this earth, where God seems so utterly forgotten, we shall find that it is He, after all, who commands the most fidelity and the most love.

He who has ceased to enjoy his friend's superiority has ceased to love him.

Truth only is prolific. Error, sterile in itself, produces only by means of the portion of truth which it contains. It may have offspring, but the life which it gives, like that of the hybrid races, cannot be transmitted.

When any one tells you that he belongs to no party, you may at any rate be sure that he does not belong to yours.

Suspicion has its dupes, as well as credulity.

Consolation heaps without contact; somewhat like the blessed air which we need but to breathe.

Those who make us happy are always thankful to us for being so; their gratitude is the reward of their benefits.

My sole defense against the natural horror which death inspires is to love beyond it.

When fresh sorrows have caused us to take some steps in the right way, we may not complain. We have invested in a life annuity, but the income remains.

A good, finished scandal, fully armed and equipped, such as circulates in the world, is rarely the production of a single individual, or even of a single coterie. It sees the light in one; is rocked and nurtured in another; is petted, developed, and attains its growth in a third; and receives its finishing touches only after passing through a multitude of hands. It is a child that can count a host of fathers--all ready to disown it.

The beings who appear cold, but are only timid, adore where they dare to love.

All the joys of earth will not assuage our thirst for happiness; while a single grief suffices to shroud life in a sombre veil, and smite it with nothingness at all points.

Loving souls are like paupers. They live on what is given them.

Let us not fail to scatter along our pathway the seeds of kindness and sympathy. Some of them will doubtless perish; but if one only lives, it will perfume our steps and rejoice our eyes.

If it were ever allowable to forget what is due to superiority of rank, it would be when the privileged themselves remember it.

True poets, like great artists, have scarcely any childhood, and no old age.

Since there must be chimeras, why is not perfection the chimera of all men?

People read every thing nowadays, except books.

Prayer has a right to the word "ineffable." It is an hour of outpourings which words cannot express,--of that interior speech which we do not articulate, even when we employ it.

To reveal imprudently the spot where we are most sensitive and vulnerable is to invite a blow. The demigod Achilles admitted no one to his confidence.

There are but two future verbs which man may appropriate confidently and without pride: "I shall suffer," and "I shall die.

Faith, amid the disorders of a sinful life, is like the lamp burning in an ancient tomb.

Old age is not one of the beauties of creation, but it is one of its harmonies. The law of contrasts is one of the laws of beauty. Under the conditions of our climate, shadow gives light its worth; sternness enhances mildness; solemnity, splendor. Varying proportions of size support and subserve one another.

The Christian's God is a God of metamorphoses. You cast grief into his bosom: you draw thence, peace. You cast in despair: 'tis hope that rises to the surface. It is a sinner whose heart he moves. It is a saint who returns him thanks.

Providence has hidden a charm in difficult undertakings, which is appreciated only by those who dare to grapple with them.

Virtue is the daughter of Religion; Repentance, her adopted child,--a poor orphan who, without the asylum which she offers, would not know where to hide her sole treasure, her tears!

The root of sanctity is sanity. A man must be healthy before he can be holy. We bathe first, and then perfume.

God Himself allows certain faults; and often we say, "I have deserved to err; I have deserved to be ignorant.

Resignation is, to some extent, spoiled for me by the fact that it is so entirely conformable to the laws of common-sense. I should like just a little more of the supernatural in the practice of my favorite virtue.

The very might of the human intellect reveals its limits.

Where there is a question of economy, I prefer privation.

Antiquity is a species of aristocracy with which it is not easy to be on visiting terms.

Silence is like nightfall. Objects are lost in it insensibly.

Friendship is like those ancient altars where the unhappy, and even the guilty, found a sure asylum.

Indulgence is lovely in the sinless; toleration, adorable in the pious and believing heart.

The best of lessons, for a good many people, would be to listen at a keyhole. It is a pity for such that the practice is dishonorable.

God has prohibited despair.

The most dangerous of all flattery is the inferiority of those about us.

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

Our faults afflict us more than our good deeds console. Pain is ever uppermost in the conscience as in the heart.

Old age is the night of life, as night is the old age of the day. Still, night is full of magnificence; and, for many, it is more brilliant than the day.

Let us shun everything, which might tend to efface the primitive lineaments of our individuality. Let us reflect that each one of us is a thought of God.

The law of common sense.

Indifferent souls never part. Impassioned souls part, and return to one another, because they can do no better.

Men do not go out to meet misfortune as we do. They learn it; and we--we divine it.

Life grows darker as we go on, till only one pure light is left shining on it; and that is faith. Old age, like solitude and sorrow, has its revelations.

The symptoms of compassion and benevolence, in some people, are like those minute guns which warn you that you are in deadly peril.