18th-century Author Quotes

Jane Austen

Lord Byron

Stendhal

Novalis

Walter Scott

Giacomo Casanova

William Wordsworth

He who talks much cannot always talk well.

Now as all the sciences are connected with each other, Philosophy is never completed. In a complete system of all the sciences will philosophy for the first time be made manifest.

A persuadable temper might sometimes be as much in favour of happiness as a very resolute character.

Five minutes! Zounds! I have been five minutes too late all my life-time!

So do the dark in soul expire, Or live like scorpion girt by fire; So writhes the mind remorse hath riven, Unfit for earth, undoom'd for heaven, Darkness above, despair beneath, Around it flame, within it death.

It is from cowardice and not from want of enlightenment that we do not read in our own hearts.

The best-concerted schemes men lay for fame, Die fast away: only themselves die faster. The far-fam'd sculptor, and the laurell'd bard, Those bold insurancers of deathless fame, Supply their little feeble aids in vain.

In heaven above, And earth below, they best can serve true gladness Who meet most feelingly the calls of sadness.

William Wordsworth

In following their line through, and those of Plantagenet and Tudor, there is but little to soothe the mind.

Charlotte Turner Smith

Should I perchance still feel after my death, I would no longer have any doubt, but I would most certainly give the lie to anyone asserting before me that I was dead.

Giacomo Casanova

None but the estimable shall hear from me that I esteem them. The whole world is entitled to my courtesy, but greater tribute than that must be earned through virtuous acts.

Sophie von La Roche

When gloaming treads the heels of day
And birds sit cowering on the spray,
Along the flowery hedge I stray,
To meet mine ain dear somebody.

Robert Tannahill

I am not disposed to form a very favorable idea of Chemistry, nor do I expect to derive much entertainment from it. I prefer the sciences which exhibit nature on a grand scale, to those that are confined to the minutiae of petty details.

Time's stern tide, with cold Oblivion's wave, Shall soon dissolve each fair, each fading charm.

I shall not say why and how I became, at the age of fifteen, the mistress of the Earl of Craven.

Harriette Wilson

The ordinary manner of spending their time, is the only way of judging of people's inclination and genius.

True modesty is a discerning grace
And only blushes in the proper place;
But counterfeit is blind, and skulks through fear,
Where 'tis a shame to be asham'd t' appear:
Humility the parent of the first,
The last by vanity produc'd and nurs'd.

No fear of forgetting the good-humoured faces that meet us in our walks each day.

Mary Russell Mitford

Art is a misleading, deceptive superstition; in it we think that we have before us the last, innermost essence of humanity itself; and yet, it merely foists upon us a beautiful product of man, in which are set down all of the egotistical, self-satisfying thoughts and emotions which remain sterile and ineffective in the world of action. And I, imbecile, esteem this product more highly than the human being himself, whom God has created.

Wilhelm Heinrich Wackenroder

It often happens that the quotations constitute the most valuable part of a book.

The direct object of geology is, to unfold the solid substance of the earth — to discover by what causes its several parts have been either arranged or disorganized — and from what operations have originated the general stratification of its materials, the inequalities of its surface, and the vast variety of bodies that enter into its make.

John Mason Good

Don't kill!... The fly is asking you To save his life By rubbing his hands together

A man without decision can never be said to belong to himself.

It is so seldom that a young fellow has any inclination for the company of an old man...

This empire [Russia], vast as it is, is only a prison to which the emperor holds the key.

Marquis de Custine