Life and Existence

I had rather believe all the fables in the legend, and the Talmud, and the Alcoran, than that this universal frame is without a mind.

Ancient times were the youth of the world.

For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbours, and laugh at them in our turn?

It is not time or opportunity that is to determine intimacy; it is disposition alone. Seven years would be insufficient to make some people acquainted with each other, and seven days are more than enough for others.

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.

‘My idea of good company, Mr Elliot, is the company of clever, well-informed people, who have a great deal of conversation; that is what I call good company.’ ‘You are mistaken,’ said he gently, ‘that is not good company, that is the best.’

Every man is surrounded by a neighbourhood of voluntary spies, and where roads and newspapers lay every thing open.

Where people wish to attach, they should always be ignorant. To come with a well-informed mind, is to come with an inability of administering to the vanity of others, which a sensible person would always wish to avoid. A woman especially, if she have the misfortune of knowing any thing, should conceal it as well as she can.

To change your mind and to follow him who sets you right is to be nonetheless the free agent that you were before.

Every instant of time is a pinprick of eternity.

Nothing happens to anybody which he is not fitted by nature to bear.

Everything is fitting for me, my universe, which fits thy purpose. Nothing in its good time is too early or too late for me; everything is fruit for me which thy seasons, Nature, bear; from thee, in thee, to thee, are all things.

Everything is fitting for me, my universe, which fits thy purpose. Nothing in its good time is too early or too late for me; everything is fruit for me which thy seasons, Nature, bear; from thee, in thee, to thee, are all things.

You command continence; give what you command, and command what you will.

There is no salvation outside the church.

Too late came I to love thee, O thou Beauty both so ancient and so fresh, yea too late came I to love thee. And behold, thou wert within me, and I out of myself, where I made search for thee.

Tolle lege, tolle lege.

Give me chastity and continency—but not yet!

When he was reading, he drew his eyes along over the leaves, and his heart searched into the sense, but his voice and tongue were silent.

You have made us for yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.

Man is a history-making creature who can neither repeat his past nor leave it behind.

Man is a history-making creature who can neither repeat his past nor leave it behind.

A shilling life will give you all the facts.

Some thirty inches from my nose