"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 labour, and the rest of night without its slumber, it is the lovely and languid hour of twilight."
"Strange mystery of our nature, that those in whom genius developes itself in imagination, thus taking its most ethereal form, should yet be the most dependent on the opinions of others !"
"[Guido] 'I do believe 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.'"
"... — for nothing is more mournful than man's work and man's skill going to ruin for want of man's care — ..."
"[From Sir Robert Evelyn]: Opinion should guide in public affairs, not feeling. Opinion is grounded on circumstance, on observation, and on reflection. Feeling acts from impulse, which sees but half. Excitement leads to enthusiasm, that moral intoxication, whose effects seem incredible to the sober, while the influence which produces the extravagance appears more extraordinary than the act itself."
"Perhaps there is no moment when beloved objects are so much beloved, as on the return from a long absence. … Assuredly meeting after absence is one of — ah, no ! — it is life's most delicious feeling."
"We talk of the influence of education — in what does it consist ? Here were two with the same blood flowing in their veins, born under the same roof, nursed by the same mother, playmates in the same nursery, surrounded by the same scenes, pursuing the same studies, subject to the same rules, rewarded by the same indulgences — never till the age of eighteen having been parted for a day; and yet were these two as opposite as if they had never known one circumstance in common."
"That certain sign of intense selfishness — he never gave any one credit for a good motive, for he believed no one better than himself."
"Who has not observed in the daily intercourse of domestic life, that the very subject we have been striving to avoid, or planning to disclose, is sure to defeat our best-laid scheme, and start up before us when least expected?"
"[Of Sir Robert Evelyn]: [He might have said, that] if there be one habit more than another the dry-rot of all that is high and generous in youth, it is the habit of ridicule."
"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. They have no hopes in common, but stand apart—very emblems for the fortunate and worldly man, whose harsh temper has been unsoftened by participating in general suffering, existing alone in his unshared and sullen prosperity. I will have no evergreens in my garden ; when the inevitable winter comes, every beloved plant and favourite tree shall droop together — no solitary fir left to triumph over the companionship of decay."
"[Robert Evelyn to his brother]: {Of Italy} What is the result of the exclusive privilege of one class, and the hereditary bondage of another, and the ignorance of both — what but cruelty, indolence, and debasing superstition ? … the slightest encroachment of the powerful, are not matters to be neglected — such are the first steps of tyranny. Woe betide the people who allow such invasion on their freedom to gain courage from endurance, or strength from time !"
"Frankness and confidence belong to youth ; and where experience comes too soon, it brings but half knowledge. The conviction of much evil in the heart should be learned at a later period, when we shall be aware also of much good."
"Time, of which so little has been measured, seems so very long — we soon learn the worldly lesson, that friends are easily replaced, and still more easily forgotten."
"[From Francisco di Carrara]: … gold is the earthly deity, to whom is intrusted the destinies of humanity. It is power, it is pleasure, it is love ; for even affection may be bought by gratitude. What can a king give to his bravest but wealth ? How can the lover surround the loved with the lovely but with wealth ? Nay, will it not,[“ added he, with a scarce perceptible sneer, “]buy even salvation from our holy church ? There is only one thing on earth more glorious, and that is science ; …"
"But, alas ! those who are heirs of the future, destined to fill the earth with the immortal and the beautiful, what is their share in the present? the sad and the weary path — the bowed down and broken heart ! … But the young look to the goal, not to the road ; and well it is for them so to do ; they would never reach it but for such onward gaze."
"The results of this feminine interference were inevitable — vacillation, absurdity, and profligacy. The northern and southern hemispheres are not more divided than those allotted to man and woman — public and private life. There is no period of history which records the authority of the gentler sex without also recording its injurious effects. Leaving out the darker shades of the picture, are not impulse and sentiment the two mainsprings of all female action ?"
"Consistency is a human word, but it certainly expresses nothing human."
"[From D'Argenteuil]: … a man's circumstances must be desperate before he attempt to mend them by marriage."
"Ah ! hope fulfilled is but a gentler word for disappointment."
"[From Francis Evelyn]: ... who can have a miser's treasure, and not guard it with a miser's care ?"
"Ay, love teaches many lessons to a woman ; but its last and worst must be when she learns to know that it is not eternal— that it can depart, and leave a scar never to be effaced, and a void never to be filled."
"Nothing at first frames such false estimates as an imaginative temperament. It finds the power of creation so easy, the path it fashions so actual, that no marvel for a time hope is its own security, and the fancied world appears the true copy of the real. How much of disappointment — what a bitter draining of the cup of mortification to the dregs — does it take, to sober down the ardour, and chain the winged thoughts of a mind so constituted! Let any, now perhaps staid with care, and grave with many sorrows, but who once indulged in the romance born of enthusiasm and ignorance — let them recall the visions in which their youth delighted, while they smile at their folly, or sigh over their sweetness."
"... love cares not for distinctions ; but friendship cannot exist without equality."
"Good heavens ! the isolation of a crowd — that bitter blending of solitude and shame, when you fancy every one that passes casts on you an invidious or scornful glance, and yet are perfectly aware that they do not care — scarcely know— whether you are a human being like themselves ! It is in vain to say this is over-sensitiveness ; weakness though it be, it is very universal."