Ann Radcliffe Quotes

I never trust people's assertions, I always judge of them by their actions.

One act of beneficence, one act of real usefulness, is worth all the abstract sentiment in the world.

How strange it is, that a fool or knave, with riches, should be treated with more respect by the world, than a good man, or a wise man in poverty!

Never will I give my hand where my heart does not accompany it.

Employment is the surest antidote to sorrow.

Wisdom can boast no higher attainment than happiness.

Happiness arises in a state of peace, not of tumult.

A well-informed mind is the best security against the contagion of folly and vice. The vacant mind is ever on the watch for relief, and ready to plunge into error, to escape from the languor of idleness. Store it with ideas, teach it the pleasure of thinking; and the temptations of the world without, will be counteracted by the gratifications derived from the world within.

The passions are the seeds of vices as well as of virtues, from which either may spring, accordingly as they are nurtured. Unhappy they who have never been taught the art to govern them!

What is acquired without labor is seldom worth acquiring at all.

Vanity often produces unreasonable alarm.

Such is the inconsistency of real love, that it is always awake to suspicion, however unreasonable; always requiring new assurances from the object of its interest.

He loved the soothing hour, when the last tints of light die away; when the stars, one by one, tremble through æther, and are reflected on the dark mirror of the waters; that hour, which, of all others, inspires the mind with pensive tenderness, and often elevates it to sublime contemplation.

The world ridicules a passion which it seldom feels; its scenes, and its interests, distract the mind, deprave the taste, corrupt the heart, and love cannot exist in a heart that has lost the meek dignity of innocence.

What has a man's face to do with his character? Can a man of good character help having a disagreeable face?

There are some few instances in which it is virtuous to disobey.

Poverty cannot deprive us of many consolations. It cannot rob us of the affection we have for each other, or degrade us in our own opinion, of in that of any person, whose opinion we ought to value.

Sentiment is a disgrace, instead of an ornament, unless it lead us to good actions.

When one can hear people moving, one does not so much mind, about one's fears.

There is no accounting for tastes.

I tasted too what was called the sweet of revenge - but it was transient, it expired even with the object, that provoked it.

Virtue and taste are nearly the same, for virtue is little more than active taste, and the most delicate affections of each combine in real love.

And since, in our passage through this world, painful circumstances occur more frequently than pleasing ones, and since our sense of evil is, I fear, more acute than our sense of good, we become the victims of our feelings, unless we can in some degree command them.

At first a small line of inconceivable splendour emerged on the horizon, which, quickly expanding, the sun appeared in all of his glory, unveiling the whole face of nature, vivifying every colour of the landscape, and sprinkling the dewy earth with glittering light.

When justice happens to oppose prejudice, we are apt to believe it virtuous to disobey her.