Giovanni Ruffini quotes:

Travelers describe a tree in the island of Java whose pestiferous exhalations blight every tiny blade of grass within the compass of its shade. So it is with despotism.

Husband and wife,--so much in common, how different in type! Such a contrast, and yet such harmony, strength and weakness blended together!

The teacher is like the candle which lights others in consuming itself.

If country life be healthful to the body, it is no less so to the mind.

Trifling favors are readily acknowledged, though cheaply esteemed; but important ones are most rarely remembered.

Curses are like processions. They return to the place from which they came.

Fancy borrows much from memory, and so looks back to the past.

Offended self-love never forgives.

Rank and riches are chains of gold, but still chains.

Selfishness, if but reasonably tempered with wisdom, is not such an evil trait.

Stories first heard at mothers knee are never wholly forgotten.

A human heart is a skein of such imperceptibly and subtly interwoven threads that even the owner of it is often himself at a loss how to unravel it.

All papas and mammas have exactly that sort of sight which distinguishes objects at a distance clearly, while they need spectacles to see those under their very noses.

Beauty is an exquisite flower, and its perfume is virtue.

More people laugh at us than with us, however it may appear at the moment.

The perception of the beautiful is gradual, and not a lightning revelation; it requires not only time, but some study.