We were happier when we were poorer, but we were also younger.

I have sat through an Italian opera, til, for sheer pain, and inexplicable anguish, I have rushed out into the noisiest places of the crowded street, to solace myself with sounds which I was not obliged to follow and get rid of the distracting torment of endless, fruitless, barren attention!

As half in shade and half in sun This world along its path advances, May that side the sun 's upon Be all that e'er shall meet thy glances!

Nothing puzzles me more than time and space; and yet nothing troubles me less, as I never think about them.

We do not go to the theatre like our ancestors, to escape from the pressure of reality, so much as to confirm our experience of it.

We are nothing; less than nothing, and dreams. We are only what might have been, and must wait upon the tedious shores of Lethe millions of ages before we have existence, and a name.

Fly not yet; 't is just the hour When pleasure, like the midnight flower That scorns the eye of vulgar light, Begins to bloom for sons of night And maids who love the moon.