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L.E. Landon
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“Delicious tears! the heart's own dew.”
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“I loved him too as woman loves — / Reckless of sorrow, sin, or scorn.”
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“How many glorious structures we had raised / Upon Hope's sandy basis!”
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“The scar of fire, the dint of steel, / Are easier than Love's wounds to heal.”
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“There is an indolence in grief / Which will not even seek relief ...”
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“'Tis strange with how much power and pride / The softness is of love allied ...”
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“We make ourselves our own distress, / We are ourselves our happiness.”
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“We do too little feel each others' pain; / We do relax too much the social chain / That binds us to each other; slight the care / There is for grief in which we have no share.”
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“... what can wake / The soul's strong instinct of another world, / Like music?”
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“... how Disappointment tracks / The steps of Hope.”
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“... how Envy dogs success ...”
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“... our high resolves / Look down upon our slumbering acts.”
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“Thou blessed season of our spring, / When hopes are angels on the wing ...”
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“The heart hath its mystery, and who may reveal it, / Or who ever read in the depths of their own? — / How much, we never may speak of, yet feel it, / But, even in feeling it, know it unknown!”
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“... age's snow. Hides not colder depths below ...”
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“Another year, another year, — / Alas! and must it be / That Time's most dark and weary wheel / Must turn again for me?”
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“The past is perpetual youth to the heart.”
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“It is so sad — / So very lonely — to be the sole one / In whom there is a sign of change!”
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“ ... O, love should be / An ever-changing thing, — / The love that I could worship must / Be ever on the wing.”
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“... a preface is a species of literary luxury, where an author, like a lover, is privileged to be egotistical ...”
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“... youth, balancing itself upon hope, is forever in extremes: its expectations are continually aroused only to be baffled, and disappointment, like a summer shower, is violent in proportion to its brevity.”
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“Shopping, true feminine felicity!”
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“How much we give to thoughts and things our tone, / And judge of others' feelings by our own!”
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“... marriage is like money — seem to want it, and you never get it.”
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“Every other species of talent carries with it its eternity; we enjoy the work of the poet, the painter, the sculptor, only as thousands will do after us; but the actor — his memory is with his generation, and that passes away.”
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“Repentance is a one-faced Janus, ever looking to the past.”
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“Whenever I hear a man talking of the advantages of our ill-used sex, I look upon it as the prelude to some new act of authority.”
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“In marriage, as in chemistry, opposites have often an attraction.”
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“The old proverb, applied to fire and water, may with equal truth be applied to the imagination — it is a good servant, but a bad master.”
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“... in came ... a baby, eloquent as infancy usually is, and like most youthful orators, more easily heard than understood.”
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“ ... it was one of those wet, miserable evenings, gratis copies distributed by November through the year.”
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“Suicide and antipathy to fires in a bedroom seem to be among the national characteristics. Perhaps the same moral cause may originate both.”
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“Knowledge is much like dust — it sticks to one, one does not know how.”
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“... an apt quotation is like a lamp which flings its light over the whole sentence.”
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“One would think that an unsuccessful volume was like a degree in the school of reviewing. One unread work makes the judge bitter enough; but a second failure, and he is quite desperate in his damnation. I do believe one half of the injustice — the severity of 'the ungentle craft' originates in its own want of success: they cannot forgive the popularity which has passed them over ...”
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“... there are six of the one and half-a-dozen of the other ...”
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“... traveling is as much a passion as love, poetry, or ambition.”
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“... she is now half of one of those happy couples which make one understand a phrase somewhat difficult to comprehend, from so seldom witnessing it — domestic felicity.”
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“... the blessings of matrimony, like those of poverty, belong rather to philosophy than reality.”
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“... Emily heard a great deal of conversation, of which conceit was the canvas, while flattery laid on the colors.”
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“... it is a curious fact, but one which all experience owns, that people do not desire so much to appear better, as to appear different from what they really are.”
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“We hope, plan, execute; will it be in vain? / Or will the future be the past again?”
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“Truly, a little love-making is a very pleasant thing ...”
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“... there is nothing so easy as to be wise for others; a species of prodigality, by-the-by — for such wisdom is wholly wasted.”
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“... I think hearts are very much like glasses — if they do not break with the first ring, they usually last a considerable time.”
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“Habit is a second nature, and what was at first pleasure, is next necessity.”
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“... doubts, like facts, are stubborn things.”
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“To be rude is as good as being clever.”
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“Alas! we give our own coloring to the actions of others.”
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“Good taste is his religion, his morality, his standard, and his test.”
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“Not that hunger does a cook justice. 'I do not like people that are hungry,' says Ude; 'hungry people eat any thing: I would have my dishes create, of themselves, an appetite; I do not wish them to be wanted till they are tasted, and then to eat is a compliment.'”
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“All sweeping assertions are erroneous.”
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“Youth is a season that has no repose.”
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“... no hour arrives so soon as the one we dread.”
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“It is curious how inseparable eating and kindness are with some people.”
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“Affection exaggerates its own offenses ... ”
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“... though fortune's wheel is generally on the turn, sometimes when it gets into the mud, it sticks there.”
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“His mind divided! Verily, that is making two bites of a cherry.”
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“I cannot see why a taste for the country should be held so very indispensable a requisite for excellence; but really people talk of it as if it were a virtue, and as if an opposite opinion was, to say the least of it, very immoral.”
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“... whatever people in general do not understand, they are always prepared to dislike; the incomprehensible is always the obnoxious.”
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“What! still retaining your Utopian visions of female felicity? To talk of our happiness! — ours, the ill-used and oppressed! You remind me of the ancient tyrant, who, seeing his slaves sink under the weight of their chains, said, 'Do look at the indolent repose of those people!'”
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“When does the mind put forth its powers? when are the stores of memory unlocked? when does wit 'flash from fluent lips?' — when but after a good dinner? Who will deny its influence on the affections? Half our friends are born of turbots and truffles.”
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“We are ourselves the stumbling-blocks in the way of our happiness. Place a common individual — by common, I mean with the common share of stupidity, custom, and discontent — place him in the garden of Eden, and he would not find it out unless he were told, and when told, he would not believe it.”
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“Curiosity is its own suicide ...”
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“We have no patriotism toward posterity; and the selfish amusement of the present always has, and always will, outweigh the important interests of the future ...”
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“Politeness, however, acts the lady's maid to our thoughts; and they are washed, dressed, curled, rouged, and perfumed, before they are presented to the public ...”
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“It is amazing how much a thought expands and refines by being put into speech: I should think it could hardly know itself.”
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“Three armies might have been brought to combat with half the encouragement it took to bring the timid Matilda to the harp.”
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“... 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.”
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“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.”
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“Of all false assertions that ever went into the world under the banner of a great name and the mail armor of a well-turned phrase, Locke's comparison of the mind to a blank sheet of paper appears to me among the most untrue.”
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“... a great man does not leave behind him his genius, but its traces. Now, there is no disappointment so bitter as that whose cause is in ourselves.”
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“From religion ... they will learn the only true lesson of equality — the conviction that our destinies are not in our own hands; they will see that no situation in life is without its share of suffering; — and this perpetual reference to a higher power ought equally to teach the rich humility, and the poor devotion.”
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“... he asked no better revenge than a reply — and arrayed in his own mind a whole battalion of arguments, and a light armed troop of sneers.”
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“Surprises are like misfortunes or herrings — they rarely come single.”
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“Nothing is so fortunate for mankind as its diversity of opinion ... ”
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“At present we avoid warfare — 'the good swords rust'; but we are not more peaceably disposed than our ancestors — look at the gauntlet to be run by a successful author. Ingenuity is racked for abuse, and language for its expression: everybody takes his success as personal affront. I think the late invention of steel pens quite characteristic of the age.”
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“Imagination is to love what gas is to the balloon — that which raises it from earth.”
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“What he said of heads may also be said of experience — there is a large stock on hand; but somehow or other, nobody's experience ever suits us except our own.”
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“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.”
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“Anticipation is a bad sleeping draught.”
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“Jealousy ought to be tragic, to save it from being ridiculous.”
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“How very satisfactory those discussions must be, where each party retains their own opinion!”
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“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.”
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“Experience teaches, it is true; but she never teaches in time.”
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“Restraint is the golden rule of enjoyment.”
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“Our first love-letter ... There is so much to be said, and which no words seems exactly to say — the dread of saying too much is so nicely balanced by the fear of saying too little. Hope borders on presumption, and fear on reproach.”
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“Confidence is its own security.”
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“Few save the poor feel for the poor ...”
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“... he who seeks pleasure with reference to himself, not others, will ever find that pleasure is only another name for discontent.”
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“In sad truth, half our forebodings of our neighbors are but our own wishes, which we are ashamed to utter in any other form.”
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“... who has not experienced, at some time or other, that words had all the relief of tears?”
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“... to enjoy yourself is the easy method to give enjoyment to others ... ”
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“... true love is like religion, it hath its silence and its sanctity.”
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“The fearless make their own way ...”
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“How beautiful, how buoyant, and glad is morning!”
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“... conscience, like a child, is soon lulled to sleep ...”
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“... habit is our idea of eternity.”
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“English people ... never speak, excepting in cases of fire or murder, unless they are introduced.”
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“Toil is the portion of day, as sleep is that of night; but if there be one hour of the twenty-four which has the life of day without its labor, and the rest of night without its slumber, it is the lovely and languid hour of twilight.”
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“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!”
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“... there is no existence so content as that whose present is engrossed by employment, and whose future is filled by some strong hope, the truth of which is never proved. Toil and illusion are the only secrets to make life tolerable ...”
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“There are words to paint the misery of love, but none to paint its happiness ...”
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“The truth is, we never make for others the allowance we make for ourselves; and we should deny even our own words, could we hear them spoken by another.”
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“Assuredly, meeting after absence, is one of — ah, no! — it is life's most delicious feeling.”
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“I cannot love evergreens — they are the misanthropes of nature. To them the spring brings no promise, the autumn no decline; they are cut off from the sweetest of all ties with their kind — sympathy. ... I will have no evergreens in my garden; when the inevitable winter comes, every beloved plant and favorite tree shall drop together — no solitary fir left to triumph over the companionship of decay.”
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“Consistency is a human word, but it certainly expresses nothing human.”
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“Francesca's was a grievance of which most of her sex have to complain; a man's letter is always the most unsatisfactory thing in the world. There are none of those minute details which are such a solace to feminine anxiety; the mere fact of writing, always seems sufficient to content a masculine conscience.”
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“Memory has many conveniences, and, among others, that of foreseeing things as they have afterwards happened.”
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“... 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.”
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“All profound truths startle you in the first announcement.”
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“... 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.”
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“... anybody's applause is better than nobody's.”
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“... resentment was a justice she owed to herself. There are some offenses which it is an unworthy weakness to forget.”
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“... to the many, witticisms not only require to be explained, like riddles, but are also like new shoes, which people require to wear many times before they get accustomed to them.”
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“Business before pleasure ...”
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“... words alike make the destiny of empires and of individuals. Ambition, love, hate, interest, vanity, have words for their engines, and need none more powerful. Language is a fifth element — the one by which all the others are swayed.”
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“A woman only can understand a woman ...”
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“The truth is, we like to talk over our disasters, because they are ours; and others like to listen, because they are not theirs.”
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“It is a curious fact, but a fact it is, that your witty people are the most hard-hearted in the world. The truth is, fancy destroys feeling. The quick eye to the ridiculous turns every thing to the absurd side; and the neat sentence, the lively allusion, and the odd simile, invest what they touch with something of their own buoyant nature. Humor is of the heart, and has its tears; but wit is of the head, and has only smiles — and the majority of those are bitter.”
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“Farewell's a bitter word to say.”
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“Fame is bought by happiness.”
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“... time is terrible, / Avenging, and betraying.”
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“... of all the follies that we can commit, the greatest is to hesitate.”
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“We are rarely wrong when we act from impulse.”
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“... enthusiasm is the divine particle in our composition: with it we are great, generous, and true; without it, we are little, false, and mean.”
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“For nothing like the weary step / Betrays the weary heart.”
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“... hope is a timid thing, / Fearful, and weak, and born in suffering.”
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“I do not think that life has a suspense more sickening than that of expecting a letter which does not come.”
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“Ah! there are memories that will not vanish; / Thoughts of the past we have no power to banish ...”
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“... affection is a habit. ”
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“Were it not better to forget, / Than but remember and regret?”
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“The presence of perpetual change / Is ever on the earth; / To-day is only as the soil / That gives to-morrow birth.”
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“To this hour, the great science and duty of politics is lowered by the petty leaven of small and personal advantage ...”
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“Ignorance, far more than idleness, is the mother of all the vices; and how recent has been the admission, that knowledge should be the portion of all? The destinies of the future lie in judicious education; an education that must be universal, to be beneficial.”
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“... there can be neither politically nor morally a good which is not universal ... we cannot reform for a time or for a class, but for all and for the whole, and our very interests will draw us together in one wide bond of sympathy.”
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“A friend is never alarmed for us in the right place.”
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“Nothing but love can answer to love; no affection, no kindness, no care, can supply its place: it is its own sweet want.”
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“It is strange what society will endure from its idols.”
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“There is no denying that there are 'royal roads' through existence for the upper classes; for them, at least, the highways are macadamized, swept, and watered.”
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“Nothing more strongly marks the insufficiency of luxuries than the ease with which people grow accustomed to them; they are rather known by their want than by their presence. The word 'blasé' has been coined expressly for the use of the upper classes.”
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“The very effort to forget teaches us to remember.”
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“... I hate the word 'ought' — it always implies something dull, cold, and commonplace. The 'ought nots' of life are its pleasantest things.”
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“It is said that ridicule is the test of truth: it is never applied, but when we wish to deceive ourselves ...”
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“... ingratitude is the necessary consequence of receiving favors of which we are ashamed.”
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“There is no wretchedness like self-reproach.”
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“We might have been! — these are but common words, / And yet they make the sum of life's bewailing ...”
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“The lover and the physician are each popular from the same cause — we talk to them of nothing but ourselves ...”
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“... charity is a calm, severe duty; it must be intellectual, to be advantageous. It is a strange mistake that it should ever be considered a merit; its fulfillment is only what we owe to each other, and is a debt never paid to its full extent.”
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“All beginnings are very troublesome things ...”
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“November's night is dark and drear, / The dullest month of all the year.”
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“Occupation is one great source of enjoyment. No man, properly occupied, was ever miserable ... ”
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“Curiosity and courtesy are very often at variance.”
L.E. Landon, English poet, writer
(1802 - 1838)
Full name: Letitia Elizabeth Landon Maclean. She usually just used her first two initials, but also wrote under L.E.L.