Sophie Swetchine Quotes

Indifferent souls never part. Impassioned souls part, and return to one another, because they can do no better.

If it were ever allowable to forget what is due to superiority of rank, it would be when the privileged themselves remember it.

Where there is a question of economy, I prefer privation.

Prayer has a right to the word "ineffable." It is an hour of outpourings which words cannot express,--of that interior speech which we do not articulate, even when we employ it.

Life grows darker as we go on, till only one pure light is left shining on it; and that is faith. Old age, like solitude and sorrow, has its revelations.

Our faults afflict us more than our good deeds console. Pain is ever uppermost in the conscience as in the heart.

God has prohibited despair.

Consolation heaps without contact; somewhat like the blessed air which we need but to breathe.

Antiquity is a species of aristocracy with which it is not easy to be on visiting terms.

Indulgence is lovely in the sinless; toleration, adorable in the pious and believing heart.

Those who make us happy are always thankful to us for being so; their gratitude is the reward of their benefits.

The symptoms of compassion and benevolence, in some people, are like those minute guns which warn you that you are in deadly peril.

I like people to be saints; but I want them to be first and superlatively honest men.

Liberty must be a mighty thing; for by it God punishes and rewards nations.

Men are always invoking justice; yet it is justice which should make them tremble.

I can understand the things that afflict mankind, but I often marvel at God those which console. An atom may wound, but God alone can heal.

Happiness and Virtue clasp hands and walk together.

In this world of change naught which comes stays and naught which goes is lost.

Respect is a serious thing in him who feels it, and the height of honor for him who inspires the feeling.

Attention is a silent and perpetual flattery.

We are rich only through what we give and poor only through what we refuse.

Providence has hidden a charm in difficult undertakings which is appreciated only by those who dare to grapple with them.

Old age is that night of life as night is the old age of day. Still night is full of magnificence and for many it is more brilliant than the day.