We are constantly invited to be who we are. |
We are double-edged blades, and every time we whet our virtue the return stroke straps our vice |
We are eager to tunnel under the Atlantic and bring the Old World some weeks nearer to the New; but perchance the first news that will leak through into the broad, flapping American ear will be that the Princess Adelaide has the whooping cough. |
We are made happy when reason can discover no occasion for it. The memory of some past moments is more persuasive than the experience of present ones. There have been visions of such breadth and brightness that these motes were invisible in their light. |
We are not what we are, nor do we treat or esteem each other for such, but for what we are capable of being. |
We can never have enough of nature. We must be refreshed by the sight of inexhaustible vigor, vast and titanic features, the sea-coast with its wrecks, the wilderness with its living and its decaying trees, the thunder-cloud, and the rain. |
We cannot well do without our sins; they are the highway of our virtue. |
We do not enjoy poetry unless we know it to be poetry. |
We falsely attribute to men a determined character -- putting together all their yesterdays -- and averaging them -- we presume we know them. Pity the man who has character to support -- it is worse than a large family -- he is the silent poor indeed. |
We feel at first as if some opportunities of kindness and sympathy were lost, but learn afterward that any pure grief is ample recompense for all. That is, if we are faithful. For a spent grief is but sympathy with the soul that disposes events, and |
We hate the kindness which we understand. |
We have not so good a right to hate any as our Friend. |
We know but a few men, a great many coats and breeches. |
We live but a fraction of our lives |
We live thick and are in each other's way, and stumble over one another, and I think we thus lose some respect for one another. |