I come, replied he, to thee, Manfred, usurper of the principality of Otranto, from the renowned and invincible Knight, the Knight of the Gigantic Sabre: in the name of his Lord, Frederic, Marquis of V...
I avoid talking before the youth of the age as I would dancing before them: for if one's tongue don't move in the steps of the day, and thinks to please by its old graces, it is only an object of ridi...
The world is a tragedy to those who feel, but a comedy to those who think.
When people will not weed their own minds, they are apt to be overrun by nettles.
By deafness one gains in one respect more than one loses one misses more nonsense than sense.
The whole secret of life is to be interested in one thing profoundly and in a thousand things well.
There is no bombast, no similes, flowers, digressions, or unnecessary descriptions. Everything tends directly to the catastrophe.
The farther I travel, the less I wonder at anything: a few days reconcile one to a new spot, or an unseen custom; and men are so much the same everywhere, that one scare perceives a change in situatio...
Alexander at the head of the world never tasted the true pleasure that boys of his own age have enjoyed at the head of a school.
I hold visions to be wisdom, and would deny them only to ambition, which exists only by the destruction of visions of everybody else
Justice is rather the activity of truth, than a virtue in itself. Truth tells us what is due to others, and justice renders that due. Injustice is acting a lie.
If you love good roads, conveniences, good inns, plenty of postilions and horses, be so kind as to never go into Sussex. We thought ourselves in the northest part of England; the whole country has a S...
Poetry is a beautiful way of spoiling prose, and the laborious art of exchanging plain sense for harmony.
He was persuaded he could know no happiness but in the society of one with whom he could for ever indulge the melancholy that had taken possession of his soul.
Nine-tenths of the people were created so you would want to be with the other tenth.
I am in a moment of pretty wellness.
The gentle maid, whose hapless tale,these melancholy pages speak;say, gracious lady, shall she failTo draw the tear a down from thy cheek?
The world is a comedy to those who think a tragedy to those who feel.
This is a bad world; nor have I had cause to leave it with regret.
Mystery is the wisdom of blockheads.