Quotes to inspire and reflect

Nearly all marriages, even happy ones, are mistakes: in the sense that almost certainly (in a more perfect world, or even with a little more care in this very imperfect one) both partners might be found more suitable mates. But the real soul-mate is the one you are actually married to. J. R. R.

 

Take a music bath once or twice a week for a few seasons, and you will find that it is to the soul what the water bath is to the body.

Discouragement is simply the despair of wounded self-love.

The happiness of a man in this life does not consist in the absence but in the mastery of his passions.

It is well to write love letters. There are certain things for which it is not easy to ask your mistress face to face, like money for instance.

Nothing is more depressing than the conviction that one is not a hero.

Life…is like a cup of tea; the more heartily we drink, the sooner we reach the dregs.

 

The basic essential of a great actor is that he loves himself in acting.

Only enemies speak the truth; friends and lovers lie endlessly, caught in the web of duty.

The trust of the innocent is the liar's most useful tool.

He's more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.

We laugh at honor and are shocked to find traitors in our midst.

 

For words, like Nature, half reveal And half conceal the Soul within.

We are all visionaries, and what we see is our soul in things.

To be misunderstood even by those whom one loves is the cross and bitterness of life.

One should stick by one’s own soul, and by nothing else. In one’s soul, one knows the truth from the untruth, and life from death. And if one betrays one’s own soul-knowledge, one is the worst of traitors.

The difference between outlaws and in-laws is that outlaws don't promise to pay it back.

Deep meaning oft lies hid in childish play.

Character is what you know you are, not what others think you have.

Rose a nurse of ninety years,

 

Queen rose of the rosebud garden of girls.

 

She only said, ‘My life is dreary,

 

For words, like Nature, half reveal

 

Kind hearts are more than coronets,

 

And trust me not at all or all in all.

 

Man dreams of fame while woman wakes to love.

 

His honour rooted in dishonour stood,

 

I have more care to stay than will to go.

 

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;

 

Good-night, good-night! parting is such sweet sorrow.

 

He that but looketh on a plate of ham and eggs to lust after it, hath already committed breakfast with it in his heart.

 

The King found her so different from her picture … that … he swore they had brought him a Flanders mare.

 

Atque in perpetuum, frater, ave atque vale.

 

Only connect! … Only connect the prose and the passion.

 

Every time a child says ‘I don’t believe in fairies’ there is a little fairy somewhere that falls down dead.

 

Odi et amo: quare id faciam, fortasse requiris.

 

But, friend, to me He is all fault who hath no fault at all. For who loves me must have a touch of earth.

 

Of childish days is upon me, my manhood is cast Down in the flood of remembrance, I weep like a child for the past.

 

Dear as remember’d kisses after death, And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feign’d On lips that are for others; deep as love, Deep as first love, and wild with all regret; O Death in Life, the days that are no more.

 

I sometimes hold it half a sin To put in words the grief I feel; For words, like Nature, half reveal And half conceal the Soul within.

 

Sweet and low, sweet and low, Wind of the western sea, Low, low, breathe and blow, Wind of the western sea! Over the rolling waters go, Come from the dying moon, and blow, Blow him again to me; While my little one, while my pretty one, sleeps.

 

Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean, Tears from the depth of some divine despair Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes, In looking on the happy autumn fields, And thinking of the days that are no more.

 

Break, break, break, On thy cold gray stones, O Sea! And I would that my tongue could utter The thoughts that arise in me. O, well for the fisherman’s boy, That he shouts with his sister at play! O, well for the sailor lad, That he sings in his boat on the bay! And the stately ships go on To their haven under the hill; But O, for the touch of a vanish’d hand, And the sound of a voice that is still!

 

But the tender grace of a day that is dead Will never come back to me.

 

With a little hoard of maxims preaching down a daughter’s heart.

 

And this gray spirit yearning in desire To follow knowledge like a sinking star, Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.

 

I will drink Life to the lees.

 

’Tis only noble to be good. Kind hearts are more than coronets, And simple faith than Norman blood.