Faith creates the virtues in which it believes.
Truth and tears clear the way to a deep and lasting friendship. True friendship is never serene.
It is not always sorrow that opens the fountains of the eyes.
It is thus that we walk through the world like the blind, not knowing whither we are going, regarding as bad what is good, regarding as good what is bad, and ever in entire ignorance.
the days, and the months, and the years, pass so swiftly, that I can no longer retain them. Time, in its flight, hurries me away, in spite of myself; in vain I endeavor to stop him, he drags me along: the thought of this alarms me.
. . . long journeys are strange things: if we were always to continue in the same mind we are in at the end of a journey, we should never stir from the place we were then in . . .
Happiness, like misfortunes, never comes alone.
... we ought to be astonished at nothing; for what do we not meet with in our journey through life?
Occupation is the best safeguard for women under all circumstances--mental or physical, or both. Cupid extinguishes his torch in the atmosphere of industry.
Were it not for the amusement of our books, we should be moped to death for want of occupation. It rains incessantly. ... we tickle ourselves in order to laugh; to so low an ebb are we reduced.
Oh Dear! How unfortunate I am not to have anyone to weep with!
It is sometimes best to slip over thoughts and not go to the bottom of them.
... Providence conducts us with so much kindness through the different periods of our life, that we scarcely feel the change; our days glide gently and imperceptibly along, like the motion of the hour-hand, which we cannot discover. ... we advance gradually; we are the same to-day as yesterday, and to-morrow as to-day: thus we go on, without perceiving it, which is a miracle of the Providence I adore.
matrimony is a very dangerous disorder; I had rather drink.
We like so much to talk of ourselves that we are never weary of those private interviews with a lover during the course of whole years, and for the same reason the devout like to spend much time with their confessor; it is the pleasure of talking of themselves, even though it be to talk ill.
Thicken your religion a little. It is evaporating altogether by being subtilized.
It is the fine rain that soaks us through.
war often breaks out when there is the most talk of peace.
winter is past, and we have a prospect of spring that is superior to spring itself.
We are so fond of hearing ourselves spoken of, that, be it good or ill, it is still pleasing.
... truth ... carries authority with it; while falsehood and lies skulk under a load of words, without having the power of persuasion; the more they attempt to show themselves, the more they are entangled.
We are always on the side of those who speak last.
Reason bears disgrace, courage combats it, patience surmounts it.
Fortune is always on the side of the largest battalions.
There is nothing so lovely as to be beautiful. Beauty is a gift of God and we should cherish it as such.
