19th-century Author Quotes

The public always prefers to be reassured. There are those whose job this is. There are only too many.

Whenever one reads of the determination of the species, or opens a book on natural science and history, in whatever language, one inevitably comes across the name of Linne.

Johannes V. Jensen

Time is short, my strength is limited, the office is a horror, the apartment is noisy, and if a pleasant, straightforward life is not possible, then one must try to wriggle through by subtle manoeuvres.

Summary riposte
To the dreary wail
There's no knowing what
Love is all about.
Poets know a lot.

It is better to waste one's youth than to do nothing with it at all.

Georges Courteline

Beautiful... as the fortuitous encounter of a sewing machine and an umbrella on a dissecting table.

Comte de Lautréamont

There are times when Science does not satisfy.

Rudyard Kipling

When all is said and done, monotony may after all be the best condition for creation.

Lady Margaret Sackville

I tasted - careless - then -
I did not know the Wine
Came once a World - Did you?
Oh, had you told me so -
This Thirst would blister - easier - now

Emily Dickinson

"A child!" said Edith, looking at her. "When was I a child? What childhood did you ever leave to me? I was a woman - artful, designing, mercenary, laying snares for men - before I knew myself, or you, or even understood the base and wretched aim of every new display I learnt. You gave birth to a woman. Look upon her. She is in her pride tonight."

Charles Dickens

A great enormous thing, like — like nothing. A huge big — well, like a — I don't know — like an enormous big nothing.

True human life does not take place in time but always "is" at the "timeless" point where the past becomes the future - a point which we incorrectly label the present. This is a timeless point, and people are free only at this point.

The physician has a sacred mission on earth; and to fulfill it he begins at the source of life, and goes down to the mysterious darkness of the tomb.

Alexandre Dumas

Friendship is the unspeakable joy and blessing that result to two or more individuals who from constitution sympathize. Such natures are liable to no mistakes, but will know each other through thick and thin. Between two by nature alike and fitted to sympathize, there is no veil, and there can be no obstacle. Who are the estranged? Two friends explaining.

Henry David Thoreau

I love Germany so dearly that I hope there will always be two of them.

François Mauriac

Actions are sometimes performed in a masterly and most cunning way, while the direction of the actions is deranged and dependent on various morbid impressions - it's like a dream.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Faith is not trying to believe something regardless of the evidence; faith is daring to do something regardless of the consequences.

The distance between the earth and her satellite is a mere trifle, and undeserving of serious consideration. I am convinced that before twenty years are over one-half of our earth will have paid a visit to the moon.

Have you not heard of the man who was digging in the earth for roots and found a treasure?

Therefore keep in the midst of life. Do not isolate yourself. Be among men and things, and among troubles, and difficulties, and obstacles.

Only be admonished by what you already see, not to strike leagues of friendship with cheap persons, where no friendship can be. Our impatience betrays us into rash and foolish alliances which no God attends.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

You're a grand old flag;
You're a high-flying flag.
And forever in peace may you wave.

George M. Cohan

When I hear the word "culture"... I reach for my pistol.

I tell you of all history the most beautiful product is the family tie.

An age being mathematical, these flowers Of linear stalks and spheroid blooms were prized.