Letitia Elizabeth Landon Quotes

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!

A woman's fame is the tomb of her happiness.

How beautiful, buoyant, and glad is morning! The first sunshine on the leaves: the first wind, laden with the first breath of the flowers—that deep sigh with which they seem to waken from sleep; the first dew, untouched even by the light foot of the early hare; the first chirping of the rousing birds, as if eager to begin song and flight; all is redolent of the strength given by rest, and the joy of conscious life.

he who seeks pleasure with reference to himself, not others, will ever find that pleasure is only another name for discontent.

Surprises are like misfortunes or herrings - they rarely come single.

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.

Nothing but love can answer to love; no affection, no kindness, no care, can supply its place: it is its own sweet want.

Alas! we give our own coloring to the actions of others.

no hour arrives so soon as the one we dread.

Memory has many conveniences, and, among others, that of foreseeing things as they have afterwards happened.

The stars are so far, far away!

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.

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.

Knowledge is much like dust - it sticks to one, one does not know how.

Confidence is its own security.

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.

We need to suffer, that we may learn to pity.

the blessings of matrimony, like those of poverty, belong rather to philosophy than reality.

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.

To enjoy yourself is the easy method to give enjoyment to others.

anybody's applause is better than nobody's.

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.

All beginnings are very troublesome things.

How beautiful, how buoyant, and glad is morning!

To this hour, the great science and duty of politics is lowered by the petty leaven of small and personal advantage.

I do love violets; they tell the history of woman's love.

It is said that ridicule is the test of truth; but it is never applied except when we wish to deceive ourselves - when if we cannot exclude the light, we would fain draw the curtain before it. The sneer springs out of the wish to deny; and wretched must that state of mind be, that wishes to take refuge in doubt.

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.

... 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.

in came ... a baby, eloquent as infancy usually is, and like most youthful orators, more easily heard than understood.

Travel is as much a passion as ambition or love.

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.

there is nothing so easy as to be wise for others; a species of prodigality, by-the-by - for such wisdom is wholly wasted.

Conscience, like a child, is soon lulled to sleep.

How very satisfactory those discussions must be, where each party retains their own opinion!

There is a large stock on hand; but somehow or other, nobody's experience ever suits us but our own.

It is strange what society will endure from its idols.

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.

It is said that ridicule is the test of truth: it is never applied, but when we wish to deceive ourselves.

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.

Delicious tears! The heart's own dew.

Consistency is a human word, but it certainly expresses nothing human.

To be rude is as good as being clever.

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.

Ah, tell me not that memory sheds gladness o'er the past, what is recalled by faded flowers, save that they did not last?

A friend is never alarmed for us in the right place.

No thoroughly occupied man was ever yet very miserable.

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.