Love is the flower of life, and blossoms unexpectedly and without law, and must be plucked where it is found, read more

Love is the flower of life, and blossoms unexpectedly and without law, and must be plucked where it is found, and enjoyed for the brief hour of its duration.

I understand by this passion the union of desire, friendship, and tenderness, which is inflamed by a single female, which read more

I understand by this passion the union of desire, friendship, and tenderness, which is inflamed by a single female, which prefers her to the rest of her sex, and which seeks her possession as the supreme or the sole happiness of our being.

We cease loving ourselves if no one loves us.

We cease loving ourselves if no one loves us.

There is nothing heavier than compassion. Not even one's own pain weighs so heavy as the pain one feels with read more

There is nothing heavier than compassion. Not even one's own pain weighs so heavy as the pain one feels with someone, for someone, a pain intensified by the imagination and prolonged by a hundred echoes.

The great seal of truth is simplicity.

The great seal of truth is simplicity.

Every trait of beauty may be referred to some virtue, as to innocence, candor, generosity, modesty, or heroism. St. Pierre read more

Every trait of beauty may be referred to some virtue, as to innocence, candor, generosity, modesty, or heroism. St. Pierre To cultivate the sense of the beautiful, is one of the most effectual ways of cultivating an appreciation of the divine goodness.

The force of truth that a statement imparts, then, its prominence among the hordes of recorded observations that I may read more

The force of truth that a statement imparts, then, its prominence among the hordes of recorded observations that I may optionally apply to my own life, depends, in addition to the sense that it is argumentatively defensible, on the sense that someone like me, and someone I like, whose voice is audible and who is at least notionally in the same room with me, does or can possibly hold it to be compellingly true.

Before marriage a man yearns for a woman. Afterward the "y" is silent.

Before marriage a man yearns for a woman. Afterward the "y" is silent.

Pleasure is a necessary reciprocal. No one feels, who does not at the same time give it. To be pleased, read more

Pleasure is a necessary reciprocal. No one feels, who does not at the same time give it. To be pleased, one must please. What pleases you in others, will in general please them in you.