The great art of life is sensation, to feel that we exist, even in pain.
For truth is always strange; stranger than fiction.
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.
A thousand years may scare form a state. An hour may lay it in ruins.
A celebrity is one who is known to many persons he is glad he doesn't know.
The reading or non-reading a book will never keep down a single petticoat.
Let none think to fly the danger for soon or late love is his own avenger.
Shelley is truth itself and honour itself notwithstanding his out-of-the-way notions about religion.
Shakespeare's name, you may depend on it, stands absurdly too high and will go down.
I am acquainted with no immaterial sensuality so delightful as good acting.
If I am fool, it is, at least, a doubting one; and I envy no one the certainty of his self-approved wisdom.
'Tis pleasant, sure, to see one's name in print. A book's a book, although there's nothing in 't.
In England the only homage which they pay to Virtue - is hypocrisy.
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.
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.
'Tis sweet to know there is an eye will mark our coming, and look brighter when we come.
America is a model of force and freedom and moderation - with all the coarseness and rudeness of its people.
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.
I have always believed that all things depended upon Fortune, and nothing upon ourselves.
For in itself a thought, a slumbering thought, is capable of years, and curdles a long life into one hour.
I am about to be married, and am of course in all the misery of a man in pursuit of happiness.
Men are the sport of circumstances when it seems circumstances are the sport of men.
There is something pagan in me that I cannot shake off. In short, I deny nothing, but doubt everything.
Wives in their husbands' absences grow subtler, And daughters sometimes run off with the butler.
Prolonged endurance tames the bold.
If I could always read, I should never feel the want of company.
I would rather have a nod from an American, than a snuff-box from an emperor.
Women hate everything which strips off the tinsel of sentiment, and they are right, or it would rob them of their weapons.
All farewells should be sudden, when forever.
Though I love my country, I do not love my countrymen.
Now hatred is by far the longest pleasure; men love in haste but they detest at leisure.
I shall soon be six-and-twenty. Is there anything in the future that can possibly console us for not being always twenty-five?
Cervantes smiled Spain's chivalry away; A single laugh demolished the right arm Of his country.
We are all selfish and I no more trust myself than others with a good motive.
Folly loves the martyrdom of fame.
He who is only just is cruel. Who on earth could live were all judged justly?
'Tis very certain the desire of life prolongs it.
The poor dog, in life the firmest friend. The first to welcome, foremost to defend.
It is very certain that the desire of life prolongs it.
The place is very well and quiet and the children only scream in a low voice.
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.
Who loves, raves.
There are four questions of value in life, Don Octavio. What is sacred? Of what is the spirit made? What is worth living for and what is worth dying for? The answer to each is the same. Only love.
The 'good old times' - all times when old are good.
It is very iniquitous to make me pay my debts, you have no idea of the pain it gives one.
There is no such thing as a life of passion any more than a continuous earthquake, or an eternal fever. Besides, who would ever shave themselves in such a state?
What a strange thing man is; and what a stranger thing woman.
Though sages may pour out their wisdom's treasure, there is no sterner moralist than pleasure.
Then stirs the feeling infinite, so felt In solitude, where we are least alone.
Romances I ne'er read like those I have seen.
Smiles form the channels of a future tear.
For what were all these country patriots born? To hunt, and vote, and raise the price of corn?
What is fame? The advantage of being known by people of whom you yourself know nothing, and for whom you care as little.
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.
This is the patent age of new inventions for killing bodies, and for saving souls. All propagated with the best intentions.
There's naught, no doubt, so much the spirit calms as rum and true religion.
I have a great mind to believe in Christianity for the mere pleasure of fancying I may be damned.
Absence - that common cure of love.
If I don't write to empty my mind, I go mad.
He who surpasses or subdues mankind, must look down on the hate of those below.
The beginning of atonement is the sense of its necessity.
Opinions are made to be changed - or how is truth to be got at?
Men think highly of those who rise rapidly in the world; whereas nothing rises quicker than dust, straw, and feathers.
Man, being reasonable, must get drunk; the best of life is but intoxication.
I have no consistency, except in politics; and that probably arises from my indifference to the subject altogether.
Fame is the thirst of youth.
Truth is always strange, stranger than fiction.
The fact is that my wife if she had common sense would have more power over me than any other whatsoever, for my heart always alights upon the nearest perch.
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.
The dew of compassion is a tear.
I cannot help thinking that the menace of Hell makes as many devils as the severe penal codes of inhuman humanity make villains.
It is odd but agitation or contest of any kind gives a rebound to my spirits and sets me up for a time.
Friendship may, and often does, grow into love, but love never subsides into friendship.
The best prophet of the future is the past.
Society is now one polished horde, formed of two mighty tries, the Bores and Bored.
Friendship is Love without his wings!
I only go out to get me a fresh appetite for being alone.
All who joy would win must share it. Happiness was born a Twin.
Out of chaos God made a world, and out of high passions comes a people.
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.
I have great hopes that we shall love each other all our lives as much as if we had never married at all.
The heart will break, but broken live on.
Ye stars! which are the poetry of heaven!
Who tracks the steps of glory to the grave?
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.
They never fail who die in a great cause.
Between two worlds life hovers like a star, twixt night and morn, upon the horizon's verge.
The Cardinal is at his wit's end - it is true that he had not far to go.
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.
What should I have known or written had I been a quiet, mercantile politician or a lord in waiting? A man must travel, and turmoil, or there is no existence.
A woman should never be seen eating or drinking, unless it be lobster salad and Champagne, the only true feminine and becoming viands.
Nothing can confound a wise man more than laughter from a dunce.
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.
A mistress never is nor can be a friend. While you agree, you are lovers; and when it is over, anything but friends.
Her great merit is finding out mine - there is nothing so amiable as discernment.
Those who will not reason, are bigots, those who cannot, are fools, and those who dare not, are slaves.
Death, so called, is a thing which makes men weep, And yet a third of life is passed in sleep.
To withdraw myself from myself has ever been my sole, my entire, my sincere motive in scribbling at all.
Love will find a way through paths where wolves fear to prey.
But words are things, and a small drop of ink, Falling like dew, upon a thought, produces That which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think.
Sometimes we are less unhappy in being deceived by those we love, than in being undeceived by them.
I love not man the less, but Nature more.
I am sure of nothing so little as my own intentions.
