The quote database

It is Lucretian pleasure to behold the poor drudges, whom I have left behind in the world, carking and caring; like horses in a mill, drudging on in the same eternal round--and what is it all for?

A thing was worth buying then, when we felt the money that we paid for it.

To be together is for us to be at once as free as in solitude, as gay as in company.

Language is our largest common medium, and leads on into literature, which is but preserved speech.

The more you are and the more you do, the richer your life, the greater your joy.

To be too large for worry, too noble for anger, too strong for fear; and too happy to permit the presence of trouble.

You’ll never see a U-haul behind a hearse.

One may be happy to a good degree, I think, in a faithful friend, a moderate fortune, and a retired life; further than this I know nothing to wish; but if there be anything beyond it, I wish it you.

a real kindness is so far beyond all compliment, that it never appears more than when there is least of t'other mingled with it

All letters, methinks, should be free and easy as one's discourse; not studied as an oration, nor made up of hard words like a charm.

you would wonder at seeing how possible it is to live as secludedly in the midst of a multitude as in the centre of solitude

we never could differ about the worth and comfort of domestic affection

Husband, lover, nurse--not one of these, has Robert been to me, but all three together.

When gone from hence, may nobody think of me again, except when one or two may think perhaps how I loved them

Real wealth consists in things of utility and beauty, in things that help to create strong, beautiful bodies and surroundings inspiring to live in.

The forest is an eternal mediator between winds and gravity in their never-ending struggle for the possession of the waters.

Keep by every means what is your own; do not desire what belongs to others.

Do not admire your clothes, and then you will not be angry with the thief.

Have you anything better or greater to see than the sun, the moon, the stars, the whole earth, the sea?

If a man is unhappy, remember that his unhappiness is his own fault; for God has made all men to be happy, to be free from perturbations.

Does it seem to you so small and worthless a thing to be good and happy?

That was all of tangible things; but in memories we were rich. We had pierced the veneer of outside things.

The labour of the body frees us from the pains of the mind, and thus makes the poor happy.

Few things are needed to make a wise man happy; nothing can make a fool content; that is why most men are miserable.

For solitude is a virtue with us, as a sublime bent and bias to purity, which divines that in the contact of man and man--in society--it must be unavoidably impure.