Letitia Elizabeth Landon Quotes

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

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

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

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

The heart's hushed secret in the soft dark eye.

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?

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

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

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

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!

Repentance is a one-faced Janus, ever looking to the past.

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

Childhood, whose very happiness is love.

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

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.

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

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

How disappointment tracks the steps of hope.

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

All profound truths startle you in the first announcement.

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.

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

Delicious tears! The heart's own dew.

The rich know not how hard it is to be of needful rest and needful food debarred.

I would give worlds, could I believe One-half that is profess'd me; Affection! could I think it Thee, When Flattery has caress'd me.

Hopes and regrets are the sweetest links of existence.

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

A woman's fame is the tomb of her happiness.

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

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

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

My heart is its own grave!

Are we not like the actor of old times, who wore his mask so long his face took its likeness?

The dream on the pillow, That flits with the day, The leaf of the willow A breath wears away; The dust on the blossom, The spray on the sea; Ay,--ask thine own bosom-- Are emblems of thee.

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

... 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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Confidence is its own security.

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.

How beautiful, how buoyant, and glad is morning!

Travel is as much a passion as ambition or love.

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

Few save the poor feel for the poor.

All beginnings are very troublesome things.

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