Letitia Elizabeth Landon quotes:

Society is like a large piece of frozen water; and skating well is the great art of social life.

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

In sad truth, half our forebodings of our neighbors are but our own wishes, which we are ashamed to utter in any other form.

Repentance is a one-faced Janus, ever looking to the past.

An apt quotation is like a lamp which flings its light over the whole sentence.

Whatever people in general do not understand, they are always prepared to dislike; the incomprehensible is always the obnoxious.

Delicious tears! The heart's own dew.

Truly, a little love-making is a very pleasant thing ...

Are we not like the actor of old times, who wore his mask so long his face took its likeness?

All sweeping assertions are erroneous.

Eyes that droop like summer flowers.

My tears are buried in my heart, like cave-locked fountains sleeping.

I can pass days Stretch'd in the shade of those old cedar trees, Watching the sunshine like a blessing fall,-- The breeze like music wandering o'er the boughs, Each tree a natural harp,--each different leaf A different note, blent in one vast thanksgiving.

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.

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

The dream on the pillow, That flits with the day, The leaf of the willow A breath wears away; The dust on the blossom, The spray on the sea; Ay,--ask thine own bosom-- Are emblems of thee.

All profound truths startle you in the first announcement.

The wind has a language, I would I could learn! Sometimes 'tis soothing, and sometimes 'tis stern, Sometimes it comes like a low sweet song, And all things grow calm, as the sound floats along, And the forest is lull'd by the dreamy strain, And slumber sinks down on the wandering main, And its crystal arms are folded in rest, And the tall ship sleeps on its heaving breast.

A blossom full of promise is life's joy, That never comes to fruit. Hope, for a time, Suns the young floweret in its gladsome light, And it looks flourishing--a little while-- 'T is pass'd, we know not whither, but 't is gone.

How often, in this cold and bitter world, is the warm heart thrown back upon itself! Cold, careless, are we of another's grief; we wrap ourselves in sullen selfishness.

What is life? A gulf of troubled waters, where the soul, like a vexed bark, is tossed upon the waves of pain and pleasure by the wavering breath of passions.

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

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

The heart's hushed secret in the soft dark eye.

Social life is filled with doubts and vain aspirings; solitude, when the imagination is dethroned, is turned to weariness and ennui.

sight-seeing gratifies us in different ways. First, there is the pleasure of novelty; secondly, either that of admiration or fault-finding - the latter a very animated enjoyment.

And this is woman's fate: all her affections are called into life by winning flatteries, and then thrown back upon themselves to perish; and her heart, her trusting heart, filled with weak tenderness, is left to bleed or break!

Hope is love's happiness, but not its life.

The old proverb, applied to fire and water, may with equal truth be applied to the imagination - it is a good servant, but a bad master.

How disappointment tracks the steps of hope.

Enthusiasm is the divine particle in our composition: with it we are great, generous, and true; without it, we are little, false, and mean.

I think hearts are very much like glasses. If they do not break with the first ring, they usually last a considerable time.

A brier rose whose buds yield fragrant harvest for the honey bee.

Everything that looks to the future elevates human nature; for life is never so low or so little as when occupied with the present.

We might have been - these are but common words, and yet they make the sum of life's bewailing.

... 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.

... true love is like religion, it hath its silence and its sanctity.

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

a preface is a species of literary luxury, where an author, like a lover, is privileged to be egotistical ...

A sealed book, at whose contents we tremble.

A woman only can understand a woman ...

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

Affection exaggerates its own offenses ...

affection is a habit.

Alas! the praise given to the ear Ne'er was nor ne'er can be sincere.

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

Alas! we makeA ladder of our thoughts, where angels step,But sleep ourselves at the foot: our high resolvesLook down upon our slumbering acts.

Anticipation is a bad sleeping draught.

anybody's applause is better than nobody's.

Assuredly, meeting after absence, is one of - ah, no! - it is life's most delicious feeling.

Business before pleasure ...

But ignorance is happiness,When young Hope is to show the way

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.

Childhood, whose very happiness is love.

Confidence is its own security.

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

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

Curiosity and courtesy are very often at variance.

Curiosity is its own suicide ...

Do anything but love; or if thou lovest and art a woman, hide thy love from him whom thou dost worship; never let him know how dear he is; flit like a bird before him; lead him from tree to tree, from flower to flower; but be not won, or thou wilt, like that bird, when caught and caged, be left to pine neglected and perish in forgetfulness.

doubts, like facts, are stubborn things.

English people ... never speak, excepting in cases of fire or murder, unless they are introduced.

Every other species of talent carries with it its eternity; we enjoy the work of the poet, the painter, the sculptor, only as thousands will do after us; but the actor - his memory is with his generation, and that passes away.

Experience teaches, it is true; but she never teaches in time.

Fame is bought by happiness.

Farewell's a bitter word to say.

Few save the poor feel for the poor.

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.

Good taste is his religion, his morality, his standard, and his test.

Habit is a second nature, and what was at first pleasure, is next necessity.

habit is our idea of eternity.

Hard are life's early steps; and but that youth is buoyant, confident, and strong in hope, men would behold its threshold, and despair.

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

Hopes and regrets are the sweetest links of existence.

How beautiful, how buoyant, and glad is morning!

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

I cannot love evergreens - they are the misanthropes of nature. To them the spring brings no promise, the autumn no decline; they are cut off from the sweetest of all ties with their kind - sympathy. ... I will have no evergreens in my garden; when the inevitable winter comes, every beloved plant and favorite tree shall drop together - no solitary fir left to triumph over the companionship of decay.

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

I do not think that life has a suspense more sickening than that of expecting a letter which does not come.

I hate the word 'ought' - it always implies something dull, cold, and commonplace. The 'ought nots' of life are its pleasantest things.

I have a respect for family pride. If it be a prejudice, it is a prejudice in its most picturesque shape. But I hold it is connected with some of the noblest feelings in our nature.

I have no parting sigh to give, so take my parting smile.

I never cast a flower away, A gift of one who car'd for me; A flower--a faded flower, But it was done reluctantly.

I will look on the stars and look on thee, and read the page of thy destiny.

I would give worlds, could I believe One-half that is profess'd me; Affection! could I think it Thee, When Flattery has caress'd me.

If there be any one habit which more than another is the dry rot of all that is high and generous in youth, it is the habit of ridicule.

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.

Imagination is to love what gas is to the balloon-that which raises it from earth.

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

In marriage, as in chemistry, opposites have often an attraction.

In our road through life we may happen to meet with a man casting a stone reverentially to enlarge the cairn of another which stone he has carried in his bosom to sling against that very other's head.

ingratitude is the necessary consequence of receiving favors of which we are ashamed.

It is a curious fact, but a fact it is, that your witty people are the most hard-hearted in the world. The truth is, fancy destroys feeling. The quick eye to the ridiculous turns every thing to the absurd side; and the neat sentence, the lively allusion, and the odd simile, invest what they touch with something of their own buoyant nature. Humor is of the heart, and has its tears; but wit is of the head, and has only smiles - and the majority of those are bitter.

it is a curious fact, but one which all experience owns, that people do not desire so much to appear better, as to appear different from what they really are.

It is amazing how much a thought expands and refines by being put into speech: I should think it could hardly know itself.

It is curious how inseparable eating and kindness are with some people.

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

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.

It is strange what society will endure from its idols.

Jealousy ought to be tragic, to save it from being ridiculous.

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

marriage is like money - seem to want it, and you never get it.

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

Music is the language of some other state, born of memory. For what can wake the soul's strong instinct of some other world like music?

My heart is its own grave!

no hour arrives so soon as the one we dread.

No thoroughly occupied man was ever yet very miserable.[to feel unhappy you need the time to consider how your lot could be better]

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

Nothing is so fortunate for mankind as its diversity of opinion ...

Nothing more strongly marks the insufficiency of luxuries than the ease with which people grow accustomed to them; they are rather known by their want than by their presence. The word 'blasé' has been coined expressly for the use of the upper classes.

Occupation is one great source of enjoyment. No man, properly occupied, was ever miserable ...

of all the follies that we can commit, the greatest is to hesitate.

Oh, no! my heart can never be Again in lightest hopes the same; The love that lingers there for thee Hath more of ashes than of flame.

Oh, only those whose souls have felt this one idolatry can tell how precious is the slightest thing affection gives and hallows.

One of the greatest of all mental pleasures is to have our thoughts often divined: ever entered into with sympathy.

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 ...

Our first love-letter ... There is so much to be said, and which no words seems exactly to say - the dread of saying too much is so nicely balanced by the fear of saying too little. Hope borders on presumption, and fear on reproach.

Perhaps, from an innate desire of justification, sorrow always exaggerates itself. Memory is quite one of Job's friends; and the past is ever ready to throw its added darkness on the present.

Politeness, however, acts the lady's maid to our thoughts; and they are washed, dressed, curled, rouged, and perfumed, before they are presented to the public ...