Letitia elizabeth landon quotes

Affection exaggerates its own offenses.

it is a curious fact, but one which all experience owns, that people do not desire so much to appear better, as to appear different from what they really are.

Oh, only those whose souls have felt this one idolatry can tell how precious is the slightest thing affection gives and hallows.

Perhaps, from an innate desire of justification, sorrow always exaggerates itself. Memory is quite one of Job's friends; and the past is ever ready to throw its added darkness on the present.

to the many, witticisms not only require to be explained, like riddles, but are also like new shoes, which people require to wear many times before they get accustomed to them.

I do love violets; they tell the history of woman's love.

When does the mind put forth its powers? when are the stores of memory unlocked? when does wit 'flash from fluent lips?' -- when but after a good dinner? Who will deny its influence on the affections? Half our friends are born of turbots and truffles.

there can be neither politically nor morally a good which is not universal ... we cannot reform for a time or for a class, but for all and for the whole, and our very interests will draw us together in one wide bond of sympathy.

There are words to paint the misery of love, but none to paint its happiness.

words alike make the destiny of empires and of individuals. Ambition, love, hate, interest, vanity, have words for their engines, and need none more powerful. Language is a fifth element - the one by which all the others are swayed.

Delicious tears! The heart's own dew.

Youth is a season that has no repose.

though fortune's wheel is generally on the turn, sometimes when it gets into the mud, it sticks there.

No thoroughly occupied man was ever yet very miserable.[to feel unhappy you need the time to consider how your lot could be better]

Experience teaches, it is true; but she never teaches in time.

who has not experienced, at some time or other, that words had all the relief of tears?

Hope is love's happiness, but not its life.

It is curious how inseparable eating and kindness are with some people.

A woman only can understand a woman.

Every other species of talent carries with it its eternity; we enjoy the work of the poet, the painter, the sculptor, only as thousands will do after us; but the actor - his memory is with his generation, and that passes away.

Whenever I hear a man talking of the advantages of our ill-used sex, I look upon it as the prelude to some new act of authority.

To this hour, the great science and duty of politics is lowered by the petty leaven of small and personal advantage.

Alas! the praise given to the ear Ne'er was nor ne'er can be sincere.

The truth is, we like to talk over our disasters, because they are ours; and others like to listen, because they are not theirs.

anybody's applause is better than nobody's.

Childhood, whose very happiness is love.

I can pass days Stretch'd in the shade of those old cedar trees, Watching the sunshine like a blessing fall,-- The breeze like music wandering o'er the boughs, Each tree a natural harp,--each different leaf A different note, blent in one vast thanksgiving.

Toil is the portion of day, as sleep is that of night; but if there be one hour of the twenty-four which has the life of day without its labor, and the rest of night without its slumber, it is the lovely and languid hour of twilight.

No thoroughly occupied man was ever yet very miserable.

habit is our idea of eternity.

A preface is a species of literary luxury, where an author, like a lover, is privileged to be egotistical.

How often, in this cold and bitter world, is the warm heart thrown back upon itself! Cold, careless, are we of another's grief; we wrap ourselves in sullen selfishness.

Surprises are like misfortunes or herrings - they rarely come single.

Few save the poor feel for the poor.

Ah, tell me not that memory sheds gladness o'er the past, what is recalled by faded flowers, save that they did not last?

In sad truth, half our forebodings of our neighbors are but our own wishes, which we are ashamed to utter in any other form.

How beautiful, buoyant, and glad is morning! The first sunshine on the leaves: the first wind, laden with the first breath of the flowers—that deep sigh with which they seem to waken from sleep; the first dew, untouched even by the light foot of the early hare; the first chirping of the rousing birds, as if eager to begin song and flight; all is redolent of the strength given by rest, and the joy of conscious life.

Memory has many conveniences, and, among others, that of foreseeing things as they have afterwards happened.

All sweeping assertions are erroneous.

We are ourselves the stumbling-blocks in the way of our happiness. Place a common individual - by common, I mean with the common share of stupidity, custom, and discontent - place him in the garden of Eden, and he would not find it out unless he were told, and when told, he would not believe it.

All profound truths startle you in the first announcement.

Hard are life's early steps; and but that youth is buoyant, confident, and strong in hope, men would behold its threshold, and despair.

We need to suffer, that we may learn to pity.

Strange the affection which clings to inanimate objects - objects which cannot even know our love! But it is not return that constitutes the strength of an attachment.

The stars are so far, far away!

One of the greatest of all mental pleasures is to have our thoughts often divined: ever entered into with sympathy.

From religion ... they will learn the only true lesson of equality - the conviction that our destinies are not in our own hands; they will see that no situation in life is without its share of suffering; - and this perpetual reference to a higher power ought equally to teach the rich humility, and the poor devotion.

Consistency is a human word, but it certainly expresses nothing human.

The wind has a language, I would I could learn! Sometimes 'tis soothing, and sometimes 'tis stern, Sometimes it comes like a low sweet song, And all things grow calm, as the sound floats along, And the forest is lull'd by the dreamy strain, And slumber sinks down on the wandering main, And its crystal arms are folded in rest, And the tall ship sleeps on its heaving breast.

there is nothing so easy as to be wise for others; a species of prodigality, by-the-by - for such wisdom is wholly wasted.

We would liken music to Aladdin's lamp — worthless in itself, not so for the spirits which obey its call. We love it for the buried hopes, the garnered memories, the tender feelings, it can summon with a touch.

sight-seeing gratifies us in different ways. First, there is the pleasure of novelty; secondly, either that of admiration or fault-finding - the latter a very animated enjoyment.

Alas! we makeA ladder of our thoughts, where angels step,But sleep ourselves at the foot: our high resolvesLook down upon our slumbering acts.

One would think that an unsuccessful volume was like a degree in the school of reviewing. One unread work makes the judge bitter enough; but a second failure, and he is quite desperate in his damnation. I do believe one half of the injustice - the severity of 'the ungentle craft' originates in its own want of success: they cannot forgive the popularity which has passed them over.

youth, balancing itself upon hope, is forever in extremes: its expectations are continually aroused only to be baffled, and disappointment, like a summer shower, is violent in proportion to its brevity.

There is a large stock on hand; but somehow or other, nobody's experience ever suits us but our own.

Curiosity and courtesy are very often at variance.

Curiosity is its own suicide.

Social life is filled with doubts and vain aspirings; solitude, when the imagination is dethroned, is turned to weariness and ennui.

Shopping, true feminine felicity!

There is no existence so content as that whose present is engrossed by employment, and whose future is filled by some strong hope, the truth of which is never proved. Toil and illusion are the only secrets to make life tolerable.

We might have been - these are but common words, and yet they make the sum of life's bewailing.

So much to win, so much to lose, No marvel that I fear to choose.

It is strange what society will endure from its idols.

I will look on the stars and look on thee, and read the page of thy destiny.

... true love is like religion, it hath its silence and its sanctity.

A sealed book, at whose contents we tremble.

he who seeks pleasure with reference to himself, not others, will ever find that pleasure is only another name for discontent.

The truth is, we never make for others the allowance we make for ourselves; and we should deny even our own words, could we hear them spoken by another.

English people ... never speak, excepting in cases of fire or murder, unless they are introduced.

In our road through life we may happen to meet with a man casting a stone reverentially to enlarge the cairn of another which stone he has carried in his bosom to sling against that very other's head.

In marriage, as in chemistry, opposites have often an attraction.

Imagination is to love what gas is to the balloon-that which raises it from earth.

of all the follies that we can commit, the greatest is to hesitate.

My tears are buried in my heart, like cave-locked fountains sleeping.

The old proverb, applied to fire and water, may with equal truth be applied to the imagination - it is a good servant, but a bad master.

Knowledge is much like dust - it sticks to one, one does not know how.

the blessings of matrimony, like those of poverty, belong rather to philosophy than reality.

The past is perpetual youth to the heart.

Good taste is his religion, his morality, his standard, and his test.

Travel is as much a passion as ambition or love.

Thou know'st how fearless is my trust in thee.

That which is always within our reach, is always the last thing we take; and the chances are, that what we can do every day, we never do at all.

Restraint is the golden rule of enjoyment.

charity is a calm, severe duty; it must be intellectual, to be advantageous. It is a strange mistake that it should ever be considered a merit; its fulfillment is only what we owe to each other, and is a debt never paid to its full extent.

Confidence is its own security.

Whatever people in general do not understand, they are al ways prepared to dislike; the incomprehensible is always the obnoxious.

There is no wretchedness like self-reproach.

Do anything but love; or if thou lovest and art a woman, hide thy love from him whom thou dost worship; never let him know how dear he is; flit like a bird before him; lead him from tree to tree, from flower to flower; but be not won, or thou wilt, like that bird, when caught and caged, be left to pine neglected and perish in forgetfulness.

Truly, a little love-making is a very pleasant thing.

Nothing is so fortunate for mankind as its diversity of opinion.

The lover and the physician are each popular from the same cause - we talk to them of nothing but ourselves.

I do not think that life has a suspense more sickening than that of expecting a letter which does not come.

But ignorance is happiness,When young Hope is to show the way

We are ourselves our happiness.

To enjoy yourself is the easy method to give enjoyment to others.

Society is like a large piece of frozen water; and skating well is the great art of social life.

Ignorance, far more than idleness, is the mother of all the vices; and how recent has been the admission, that knowledge should be the portion of all? The destinies of the future lie in judicious education; an education that must be universal, to be beneficial.

the fact is, that life is too short to be occupied by aught but the present - hope and remembrance are equally a waste of time.

An apt quotation is like a lamp which flings its light over the whole sentence.

Occupation is one great source of enjoyment. No man, properly occupied, was ever miserable.

There is no denying that there are 'royal roads' through existence for the upper classes; for them, at least, the highways are macadamized, swept, and watered.

Politeness, however, acts the lady's maid to our thoughts; and they are washed, dressed, curled, rouged, and perfumed, before they are presented to the public.

The fearless make their own way.

I hate the word 'ought' - it always implies something dull, cold, and commonplace. The 'ought nots' of life are its pleasantest things.

Strange mystery of our nature, that those in whom genius develops itself in imagination, thus taking its most ethereal form, should yet be the most dependent on the opinions of others!

All beginnings are very troublesome things.

Enthusiasm is the divine particle in our composition: with it we are great, generous, and true; without it, we are little, false, and mean.

Suicide and antipathy to fires in a bedroom seem to be among the national characteristics. Perhaps the same moral cause may originate both.

How beautiful, how buoyant, and glad is morning!

Ah, tell me not that memory Sheds gladness o'er the past; What is recalled by faded flowers, Save that they did not last? Were it not better to forget, Than but remember and regret?

... many a heart is caught in the rebound ... Pride may be soothed by the ready devotion of another; vanity may be excited the more keenly by recent mortification.

Nothing but love can answer to love; no affection, no kindness, no care, can supply its place: it is its own sweet want.

How very satisfactory those discussions must be, where each party retains their own opinion!

What is life? A gulf of troubled waters, where the soul, like a vexed bark, is tossed upon the waves of pain and pleasure by the wavering breath of passions.

There is the cause for pleasure and for pain: But music moves us, and we know not why? We feel the tears, but cannot trace their source. Is it the language of some other state, Born of its memory! For what can wake The soul's strong instinct of another world, Like music！

I think hearts are very much like glasses. If they do not break with the first ring, they usually last a considerable time.

Praise is sometimes a good thing for the diffident and the despondent. It teaches them properly to rely on the kindness of others.

I cannot love evergreens - they are the misanthropes of nature. To them the spring brings no promise, the autumn no decline; they are cut off from the sweetest of all ties with their kind - sympathy. ... I will have no evergreens in my garden; when the inevitable winter comes, every beloved plant and favorite tree shall drop together - no solitary fir left to triumph over the companionship of decay.

To be rude is as good as being clever.

Sneering springs out of the wish to deny; and wretched must that state of mind be that wishes to take refuge in doubt.

It is said that ridicule is the test of truth: it is never applied, but when we wish to deceive ourselves.

I have a respect for family pride. If it be a prejudice, it is a prejudice in its most picturesque shape. But I hold it is connected with some of the noblest feelings in our nature.

marriage is like money - seem to want it, and you never get it.

It merely shews, after all, that affection is a habit.