C.N. Douglas, comp. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical. 1917.
Lady Blessington
A beautiful woman without principles may be likened to those fair but rootless flowers which float in streams, driven by every breeze.
A German writer observes: “Tho noblest characters only show themselves in their real light. All others act comedy with their fellow-men even unto the grave.”
A woman should not paint sentiment till she has ceased to inspire it.
A woman’s head is always influenced by her heart; but a man’s heart is always influenced by his head.
Borrowed thoughts, like borrowed money, only show the poverty of the borrower.
Friends are the thermometers by which we may judge the temperature of our fortunes.
Genius is the gold in the mine, talent is the miner who works and brings it out.
Heaven sends us misfortunes as a moral tonic.
Love often reillumes his extinguished flame at the torch of jealousy.
Many minds that have withstood the most severe trials have been broken down by a succession of ignoble cares.
Mediocrity is beneath a brave soul.
Memory seldom fails when its office is to show us the tombs of our buried hopes.
Religion converts despair, which destroys, into resignation, which submits.
Satire often proceeds less from ill nature than a desire to display wit.
Superstition is but the fear of belief.
Talent, like beauty, to be pardoned, must be obscure and unostentatious.
The chief requisites for a courtier are a flexible conscience and an inflexible politeness.
There is no knowledge for which so great a price is paid as a knowledge of the world; and no one ever became an adept in it except at the expense of a hardened or a wounded heart.
Those who are formed to win general admiration are seldom calculated to bestow individual happiness.
Thoughts come maimed and plucked of plumage from the lips, which, from the pen, in the silence of your own leisure and study, would be born with far more beauty.
When the sun shines on you, you see your friends. It requires sunshine to be seen by them to advantage!
Women excel more in literary judgment than in literary production,—they are better critics than authors.