Letitia Elizabeth Landon Quotes

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What he said of heads may also be said of experience — there is a large stock on hand; but somehow or other, nobody's experience ever suits us except our own.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
How noble and ennobling!—but within
How mean, how poor, how pitiful, how mix'd
With base alloy; how Disappointment tracks
The steps of Hope; how Envy dogs success;
How every victor's crown is lined with thorns,
And worn mid scoffs!

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

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

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Few, save the poor, feel for the poor. The Poor Were it not better to forget Than but remember and regret?

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
I think hearts are very much like glasses — if they do not break with the first ring, they usually last a considerable time.

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

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
The generality labour under the delusion, that when they have lighted and filled their rooms, they have done their all. They never were more in error. Lighting is much—crowding is much also—but there lacks something more exquisite still. This something the countess possessed in its perfection. Any can assemble a crowd, but few can make it mingle.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Indeed it is a doubtful fact whether clever people are ever very agreeable ; they are too much absorbed by one particular pursuit, to bound lightly enough over those generalities which are the stepping-stones of conversation ; they feel as if they ought to say something worth remembering.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Ah, minstrel song hath many wings!
From foreign lands its wealth it brings.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
If, even at three years old, we turn to the pleasures of memory, the less that is asserted about the felicity of childhood, the less there will be to dispute.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
It was my evil star above,
Not my sweet lute, that wrought me wrong;
It was not song that taught me love,
But it was love that taught me song.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
The very sound of his own steps disturbed him ; and he flung himself on a couch, to enjoy without interruption the exquisite melody. The intense perfume of the flowers intoxicated him like wine. He felt as if lulled in a delicious trance, in which one image became more and more distinct — the pale but lovely face of his hostess. His heart was filling with love for those radiant eyes. A softer fragrance breathed around him — it was her breath. He looked, and she was again bending over him ; he saw himself mirrored in the moonlight of her eyes.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Love is a pearl of purest hue,
But stormy waves are round it;
And dearly may a woman rue,
The hour that she found it.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Happiness is not for this world — a conviction that cannot be too soon acquired : it will destroy a thousand vain expectations, dissipate the most perplexing of our illusions — the early knowledge that life is but a trial, whose triumph is hereafter, and this earth a place appointed for that sorrow and patient endurance which is gradually fitting us for a better and a happier state.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
But the knowledge of the library is not that of the world; a youth of solitude is bad preparation for a manhood of action; from the earliest age we need to mingle with our kind; the child corrects and instructs the child more than their masters; our equals are the tools wherewith experience works out its lessons; and the play-ground, with its rival interests, its injustices, its necessity for the ready wit and the curbed temper is both miniature and prophesy of the world, which will but bring back the old struggles only with a sterner aspect, and the same successes, but with more than half their enjoyment departed.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
There is truth and certainty in our first impressions. First impressions are natural monitors, and nature is a true guide.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Out upon the folly which, in estimating human misery, allows aught to bear comparison with the agony of the poor ! I use the word poor relatively; I call not those poor to whom honesty brings self-respect, whose habits and whose means have gone together, and whose industry is its own support. But those are the poor whose exertion supplies not their wants—to whom cold, hunger, and weariness, are common feelings ; who have known better days—to whom the past furnishes contrast, and the future fear.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Look on yon child, it droops the head,
Its knees are bow'd with pain;
It mutters from its wretched bed,
"Oh, let me sleep again!"
Alas! 'tis time, the mother's eyes
Turn mournfully away;
Alas! 'tis time, the child must rise,
And yet it is not day.

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

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Oh, what am I, and what are they ?
Masquers but striving to deceive
Themselves and others ; and believe
It is enough, if none shall know
The covered mass of care below.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
We might have been! — these are but common words,
And yet they make the sum of life's bewailing.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
The wretch who on the scaffold stands
Has some brief time allow'd
For parting grasp of kindly hands,
For farewell to the crowd :

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
She said Oh rather thank thy God,
My lot is not thine own.
How would my weary feet rejoice
Like thine to walk and run
Over the soft and fragrant grass,
Beneath yon cheerful sun.
And yet I trust to God's good will
My spirit is resign'd ;
Though sore my sickness, it is borne
At least with patient mind.
Though noble be my father's name,
And vast my father's wealth;
He would give all, could he but give
His only child thy health !
Ah, judge not by the outside show
Of this world, vain and frail —

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
A light is gone from yonder sky,
A star has left its sphere;
The beautiful—and do they die
In yon bright world as here?
Will that star leave a lonely place,
A darkness on the night?—
No; few will miss its lovely face,
And none think heaven less bright!

Letitia Elizabeth Landon