Wisdom Quotes, page 108

“If her eyes had no expression, it was probably because they had nothing to express. If she had few wrinkles, it was because her mind had never traced its name or any other inscription on her face.”

“To the eye it is fair enough here; but seen in its integrity, under the sky, and by the daylight, it is a crumbling tower of waste, mismanagement, extortion, debt, mortgage, oppression, hunger, nakedness, and suffering.”

“There was a gay fiction among us that we were constantly enjoying ourselves, and a skeleton truth that we never did. To the best of my belief, our case was in the last respect a rather common one.”

“The wind is rushing after us, the clouds are flying after us, the moon is plunging after us, and the whole wild night is in pursuit of us; but so far we are pursued by nothing else.”

“All partings foreshadow the great final one.”

“This was my only and my constant comfort. When I think of it, the picture always rises in my mind, of a summer evening, the boys at play in the churchyard, and I sitting on my bed, reading as if for life.”

“But that Woodman and that Farmer, though they work unceasingly, work silently, and no one heard them as they went about with muffled tread: the rather, forasmuch as to entertain any suspicion that they were awake, was to be atheistical and traitorous.”

“Up the two terrace flights of steps the rain ran wildly, and beat at the great door, like a swift messenger rousing those within.”

“As an emotion of the mind will express itself through any covering of the body, so the paleness which his situation engendered came through the brown upon his cheek, showing the soul to be stronger than the sun.”

“The streets looked small, of course. The streets that we have only seen as children always do, I believe, when we go back to them.”

“A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other.”

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.”

“It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to, than I have ever known.”

“There is a wisdom of the head, and a wisdom of the heart.”

“Is it better to have had a good thing and lost it, or never to have had it?”

“The law is an ass, an idiot.”

“Least said, soonest mended.”

“It is a most miserable thing to feel ashamed of home.”

“The cloud of caring for nothing, which overshadowed him with such a fatal darkness, was very rarely pierced by the light within him.”

“In the majority of cases, conscience is an elastic and very flexible article.”

“We can refute assertions, but who can refute silence?”

“Without strong affection and humanity of heart, and gratitude to that Being whose code is mercy and whose great attribute is benevolence to all things that breathe, true happiness can never be attained.”

“The flowers that sleep by night opened their gentle eyes and turned them to the day. The light, creation's mind, was everywhere, and all things owned its power.”

“Sadly, sadly, the sun rose; it rose upon no sadder sight than the man of good abilities and good emotions, incapable of their directed exercise, incapable of his own help and his own happiness, sensible of the blight on him, and resigning himself to let it eat him away.”

“Dead, your Majesty. Dead, my lords and gentlemen. Dead, Right Reverends and Wrong Reverends of every order. Dead, men and women born with heavenly compassion in your hearts, and dying thus around us every day.”

“Now, what I want is facts.”

“Circumstances may accumulate so strongly even against an innocent man, that directed, sharpened, and pointed, they may slay him.”

“Home is a name, a word; it is a strong one — stronger than magician ever spoke, or spirit ever answered to, in the strongest conjuration.”

“Crush humanity out of shape once more, under similar hammers, and it will twist itself into the same tortured forms. Sow the same seeds of rapacious licence and oppression over again, and it will surely yield the same fruit according to its kind.”

“I only know that it was, and ceased to be; and that I have written, and there I leave it.”