Men are the sport of circumstances when it seems circumstances are the sport of men.

‘Tis pleasant, sure, to see one’s name in print. A book’s a book, although there’s nothing in ‘t.

It is very certain that the desire of life prolongs it.

A woman should never be seen eating or drinking, unless it be lobster salad and Champagne, the only true feminine and becoming viands.

To withdraw myself from myself has ever been my sole, my entire, my sincere motive in scribbling at all.

A thousand years may scare form a state. An hour may lay it in ruins.

When the green woods laugh with the voice of joy, And the dimpling stream runs laughing by; When the air does laugh with our merry wit, And the green hill laughs with the noise of it.

The busy have no time for tears.

What a strange thing man is; and what a stranger thing woman.

It is odd but agitation or contest of any kind gives a rebound to my spirits and sets me up for a time.

Out of chaos God made a world, and out of high passions comes a people.

The poor dog, in life the firmest friend. The first to welcome, foremost to defend.

He who is only just is cruel. Who on earth could live were all judged justly?

Truth is always strange, stranger than fiction.

The beginning of atonement is the sense of its necessity.

Roll on, deep and dark blue ocean, roll. Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain. Man marks the earth with ruin, but his control stops with the shore.

Men think highly of those who rise rapidly in the world; whereas nothing rises quicker than dust, straw, and feathers.

Why I came here, I know not; where I shall go it is useless to inquire – in the midst of myriads of the living and the dead worlds, stars, systems, infinity, why should I be anxious about an atom?

Yes, love indeed is light from heaven; A spark of that immortal fire with angels shared, by Allah given to lift from earth our low desire.

Friendship is Love without his wings!

Prolonged endurance tames the bold.

There’s naught, no doubt, so much the spirit calms as rum and true religion.

Her great merit is finding out mine – there is nothing so amiable as discernment.

Where there is mystery, it is generally suspected there must also be evil.

Let none think to fly the danger for soon or late love is his own avenger.

Be thou the rainbow in the storms of life. The evening beam that smiles the clouds away, and tints tomorrow with prophetic ray.

A celebrity is one who is known to many persons he is glad he doesn’t know.

Fame is the thirst of youth.

The ‘good old times’ – all times when old are good.

I am acquainted with no immaterial sensuality so delightful as good acting.

They never fail who die in a great cause.

Adversity is the first path to truth.

I have always believed that all things depended upon Fortune, and nothing upon ourselves.

The great art of life is sensation, to feel that we exist, even in pain.

This man is freed from servile bands, Of hope to rise, or fear to fall; Lord of himself, though not of lands, And leaving nothing, yet hath all.

My turn of mind is so given to taking things in the absurd point of view, that it breaks out in spite of me every now and then.

‘Tis very certain the desire of life prolongs it.

We are all selfish and I no more trust myself than others with a good motive.

For truth is always strange; stranger than fiction.

I love not man the less, but Nature more.

Love will find a way through paths where wolves fear to prey.

To have joy one must share it. Happiness was born a twin.

The heart will break, but broken live on.

Folly loves the martyrdom of fame.

I would rather have a nod from an American, than a snuff-box from an emperor.

He who surpasses or subdues mankind, must look down on the hate of those below.

For pleasures past I do not grieve, nor perils gathering near; My greatest grief is that I leave nothing that claims a tear.

As long as I retain my feeling and my passion for Nature, I can partly soften or subdue my other passions and resist or endure those of others.

Though sages may pour out their wisdom’s treasure, there is no sterner moralist than pleasure.

I only go out to get me a fresh appetite for being alone.

America is a model of force and freedom and moderation – with all the coarseness and rudeness of its people.

Absence – that common cure of love.

Every day confirms my opinion on the superiority of a vicious life – and if Virtue is not its own reward I don’t know any other stipend annexed to it.

Men are the sport of circumstances when it seems circumstances are the sport of men.

I have a great mind to believe in Christianity for the mere pleasure of fancying I may be damned.

Smiles form the channels of a future tear.

But what is Hope? Nothing but the paint on the face of Existence; the least touch of truth rubs it off, and then we see what a hollow-cheeked harlot we have got hold of.

I am about to be married, and am of course in all the misery of a man in pursuit of happiness.

In England the only homage which they pay to Virtue – is hypocrisy.

For in itself a thought, a slumbering thought, is capable of years, and curdles a long life into one hour.

I cannot help thinking that the menace of Hell makes as many devils as the severe penal codes of inhuman humanity make villains.

I know that two and two make four – and should be glad to prove it too if I could – though I must say if by any sort of process I could convert 2 and 2 into five it would give me much greater pleasure.

Opinions are made to be changed – or how is truth to be got at?

I have great hopes that we shall love each other all our lives as much as if we had never married at all.

A man of eighty has outlived probably three new schools of painting, two of architecture and poetry and a hundred in dress.

If I could always read, I should never feel the want of company.

Man, being reasonable, must get drunk; the best of life is but intoxication.

Friendship may, and often does, grow into love, but love never subsides into friendship.

One certainly has a soul; but how it came to allow itself to be enclosed in a body is more than I can imagine. I only know if once mine gets out, I’ll have a bit of a tussle before I let it get in again to that of any other.

Between two worlds life hovers like a star, twixt night and morn, upon the horizon’s verge.

I should be very willing to redress men wrongs, and rather check than punish crimes, had not Cervantes, in that all too true tale of Quixote, shown how all such efforts fail.

Death, so called, is a thing which makes men weep, And yet a third of life is passed in sleep.

There is no instinct like that of the heart.

It is useless to tell one not to reason but to believe – you might as well tell a man not to wake but sleep.

The dew of compassion is a tear.

The place is very well and quiet and the children only scream in a low voice.

Always laugh when you can. It is cheap medicine.

Life’s enchanted cup sparkles near the brim.

Who loves, raves.

If we must have a tyrant, let him at least be a gentleman who has been bred to the business, and let us fall by the axe and not by the butcher’s cleaver.

Society is now one polished horde, formed of two mighty tries, the Bores and Bored.

Who tracks the steps of glory to the grave?

Sorrow is knowledge, those that know the most must mourn the deepest, the tree of knowledge is not the tree of life.

Though I love my country, I do not love my countrymen.

Men love in haste, but they detest at leisure.

Those who will not reason, are bigots, those who cannot, are fools, and those who dare not, are slaves.

I have no consistency, except in politics; and that probably arises from my indifference to the subject altogether.

In solitude, where we are least alone.

If I don’t write to empty my mind, I go mad.

Man is born passionate of body, but with an innate though secret tendency to the love of Good in his main-spring of Mind. But God help us all! It is at present a sad jar of atoms.

There is something pagan in me that I cannot shake off. In short, I deny nothing, but doubt everything.

Like the measles, love is most dangerous when it comes late in life.

Lovers may be – and indeed generally are – enemies, but they never can be friends, because there must always be a spice of jealousy and a something of Self in all their speculations.

Sometimes we are less unhappy in being deceived by those we love, than in being undeceived by them.

The Cardinal is at his wit’s end – it is true that he had not far to go.

All who joy would win must share it. Happiness was born a Twin.

Ye stars! which are the poetry of heaven!

Man’s love is of man’s life a part; it is a woman’s whole existence. In her first passion, a woman loves her lover, in all the others all she loves is love.

What is the worst of woes that wait on age? What stamps the wrinkle deeper on the brow? To view each loved one blotted from life’s page, And be alone on earth, as I am now.

What is fame? The advantage of being known by people of whom you yourself know nothing, and for whom you care as little.

A mistress never is nor can be a friend. While you agree, you are lovers; and when it is over, anything but friends.

I do detest everything which is not perfectly mutual.

This is the patent age of new inventions for killing bodies, and for saving souls. All propagated with the best intentions.

Fools are my theme, let satire be my song.