“She was tranquil, but it was with the quietness of exhausted grief, not of resignation; and she looked back upon the past, and awaited the future, with a kind of out-breathed despair.”
Source: The Italian, or the confessional of the black penitents. A romance. By Ann Radcliffe, ... In three volumes. ... The second edition. Volume 1 of 3
“...all the woods and strands of Naples re-echoed with — 'O! giorno felíce! O! giorno felíce!' 'You see,' said Paulo, when they had departed, and he came to himself again, “you see how people get through their misfortunes, if they have but a heart to bear up against them, and do nothing that can lie on their conscience afterwards; and how suddenly one comes to be happy, just when one is beginning to think one never is to be happy again!”
Source: The Italian
“Wisdom or accident, at length, recall us from our error, and offers to us some object capable of producing a pleasing, yet lasting effect, which effect, therefore, we call happiness. Happiness has this essential difference from what is commonly called pleasure, that virtue forms its basis, and virtue being the offspring of reason, may be expected to produce uniformity of effect.”
Source: A Sicilian Romance
“Remember, too, that one act of beneficence, one act of real usefulness, is worth all the abstract sentiment in the world. Sentiment is a disgrace, instead of an ornament, unless it lead us to good actions.”
Source: The Mysteries of Udolpho
“Świat ośmiesza namiętności, które są mu mało znane. Jego obrazy i zainteresowania rozpraszają uwagę, psują smak i serce, a miłość nie może istnieć w sercu, które zatraciło godność niewinności. Cnota i smak są prawie tym samym, bo cnota to niewiele więcej niż aktywny smak, i na prawdziwą miłość składają się najdelikatniejsze afekty jednego i drugiego. Jakże więc mamy szukać miłości w wielkich miastach, gdzie miejsce czułości, prostoty i prawdy zajmują samolubstwo, rozpusta i nieszczerość?”
Source: The Mysteries of Udolpho
“As I walked over the loose fragments of stone, which lay scattered and surveyed the sublimity and grandeur of the ruins, I recurred, by a natural association of ideas, to the times when these walls stood proudly in their original splendor, when the halls were the scenes of hospitality and festive magnificence, and when they resounded with the voices of those whom death had long since swept from earth. "Thus," said I, "shall the present generation - he who now sink in misery - and he who now swim in pleasure, alike pass away and be forgotten.”
Source: A Sicilian Romance
“Owładnął nią przesądny strach, nasłuchiwała kilka chwil w trwożnym oczekiwaniu, a potem spróbowała zebrać myśli i odwołać się do rozsądku, ale rozsądek ludzki nie może objąć swoimi prawami spraw zagubionych w mrokach wyobraźni, tak samo jak oko nie zdoła ustalić kształtu przedmiotów zaledwie przebłyskujących przez mrok nocy.”
Source: The Mysteries of Udolpho
“O! useful may it be to have shewn, that, though the vicious can sometimes pour affliction upon the good, their power is transient and their punishment certain; and that innocence, though oppressed by injustice, shall, supported by patience, finally triumph over misfortune!And, if the weak hand, that has recorded this tale, has, by its scenes, beguiled the mourner of one hour of sorrow, or, by its moral, taught him to sustain it—the effort, however humble, has not been vain, nor is the writer unrewarded.”
Source: Five Gothic Masterpieces: The Mysteries of Udolpho, The Great God Pan, Frankenstein, Carmilla, and Dracula
“To a generous mind few circumstances are more afflicting than a discovery of perfidy in those whom we have trusted.”
Source: The romance of the forest, by the authoress of 'A Sicilian romance'.
“To discover depravity in those whom we have loved, is one of the most exquisite tortures to a virtuous mind, and the conviction is often rejected before it is finally admitted.”
Source: The romance of the forest, by the authoress of 'A Sicilian romance'.
“There are some few instances in which it is virtuous to disobey.”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Ann Radcliffe (Illustrated)
“How despicable is that humanity, which can be contented to pity, where it might assuage!”
Source: The Mysteries of Udolfo: A Romance Interspersed with Some Pieces of Poetry
“Never will I give my hand where my heart does not accompany it.”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Ann Radcliffe (Illustrated)
“Sentiment is a disgrace, instead of an ornament, unless it lead us to good actions.”
Source: The Mysteries of Udolfo: A Romance Interspersed with Some Pieces of Poetry
“There is no accounting for tastes.”
Source: The Mysteries of Udolfo: A Romance Interspersed with Some Pieces of Poetry
“Vanity often produces unreasonable alarm.”
Source: A Sicilian romance, by the authoress of The castles of Athlin and Dunbayne
“Wisdom can boast no higher attainment than happiness.”
Source: The Mysteries of Udolpho
“Ignorance of true pleasure more frequently than temptation to that which is false, leads to vice.”
Source: The romance of the forest, by the authoress of 'A Sicilian romance'.
“But St. Aubert had too much good sense to prefer a charm to a virtue.”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Ann Radcliffe (Illustrated)
“When justice happens to oppose prejudice, we are apt to believe it virtuous to disobey her.”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Ann Radcliffe (Illustrated)
“What has a man's face to do with his character? Can a man of good character help having a disagreeable face?”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Ann Radcliffe (Illustrated)
“What are riches - grandeur - health itself, to the luxury of a pure conscience, the health of the soul; - and what the sufferings of poverty, disappointment, despair - to the anguish of an afflicted one!”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Ann Radcliffe (Illustrated)
“The world ridicules a passion which it seldom feels; its scenes, and its interests, distract the mind, deprave the taste, corrupt the heart, and love cannot exist in a heart that has lost the meek dignity of innocence.”
Source: The Mysteries of Udolfo: A Romance Interspersed with Some Pieces of Poetry
“Virtue and taste are nearly the same, for virtue is little more than active taste, and the most delicate affections of each combine in real love.”
Source: The Mysteries of Udolfo: A Romance Interspersed with Some Pieces of Poetry
“There is some magic in wealth, which can thus make persons pay their court to it, when it does not even benefit themselves.”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Ann Radcliffe (Illustrated)
“What is acquired without labor is seldom worth acquiring at all.”
“A well-informed mind is the best security against the contagion of folly and vice. The vacant mind is ever on the watch for relief, and ready to plunge into error, to escape from the languor of idleness. Store it with ideas, teach it the pleasure of thinking; and the temptations of the world without, will be counteracted by the gratifications derived from the world within.”
Source: The Mysteries of Udolfo: A Romance Interspersed with Some Pieces of Poetry
“I ought not to doubt the steadiness of your affection. Yet such is the inconsistency of real love, that it is always awake to suspicion, however unreasonable; always requiring new assurances from the object of its interest, and thus it is, that i always feel revived, as by a new convinction, when your words tell me I am dear to you; and wanting these, I relapse into doubt and often into despondency.”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Ann Radcliffe (Illustrated)
“Do you believe your heart to be, indeed, so hardened, that you can look without emotion on the suffering, to which you would condemn me?”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Ann Radcliffe (Illustrated)
“Such is the inconsistency of real love, that it is always awake to suspicion, however unreasonable; always requiring new assurances from the object of its interest.”
Source: The Mysteries of Udolpho
“He loved the soothing hour, when the last tints of light die away; when the stars, one by one, tremble through æther, and are reflected on the dark mirror of the waters; that hour, which, of all others, inspires the mind with pensive tenderness, and often elevates it to sublime contemplation.”
Source: The Mysteries of Udolpho
“At first a small line of inconceivable splendour emerged on the horizon, which, quickly expanding, the sun appeared in all of his glory, unveiling the whole face of nature, vivifying every colour of the landscape, and sprinkling the dewy earth with glittering light.”
Source: The romance of the forest, by the authoress of 'A Sicilian romance'.
“One act of beneficence, one act of real usefulness, is worth all the abstract sentiment in the world.”
Source: The Mysteries of Udolfo: A Romance Interspersed with Some Pieces of Poetry
“Poverty cannot deprive us of many consolations. It cannot rob us of the affection we have for each other, or degrade us in our own opinion, of in that of any person, whose opinion we ought to value.”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Ann Radcliffe (Illustrated)
“There is some comfort in dying surrounded by one's children.”
Source: The Mysteries of Udolpho
“I never trust people's assertions, I always judge of them by their actions.”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Ann Radcliffe (Illustrated)
“The refreshing pleasure from the first view of nature, after the pain of illness, and the confinement of a sick-chamber, is above the conceptions, as well as the descriptions, of those in health.”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Ann Radcliffe (Illustrated)
“I wish that all those, who on this night are not merry enough to speak before they think, may ever after be grave enough to think before they speak!”
Source: The Italian or the Confessional of the Black Penitents
“But no matter for that, you can be tolerably happy, perhaps, notwithstanding; but as for guessing how happy I am, or knowing anything about the matter,--- O! its quite beyond what you can understand.”
Source: The Italian or the Confessional of the Black Penitents
“There is something in the ardour and ingenousness of youth, which is particularly pleasing to the contemplation of an old man, if his feelings have not been entirely corroded by the world.”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Ann Radcliffe (Illustrated)
“And since, in our passage through this world, painful circumstances occur more frequently than pleasing ones, and since our sense of evil is, I fear, more acute than our sense of good, we become the victims of our feelings, unless we can in some degree command them.”
Source: The Mysteries of Udolpho: Horror and Romance
“Employment is the surest antidote to sorrow.”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Ann Radcliffe (Illustrated)
“I tasted too what was called the sweet of revenge - but it was transient, it expired even with the object, that provoked it.”
Source: The Mysteries of Udolfo: A Romance Interspersed with Some Pieces of Poetry
“Happiness arises in a state of peace, not of tumult.”
Source: The Mysteries of Udolpho: Horror and Romance
“It is dismal coming home, when there is nobody to welcome one!”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Ann Radcliffe (Illustrated)
“If the weak hand, that has recorded this tale, has, by its scenes, beguiled the mourner of one hour of sorrow, or, by its moral, taught him to sustain it - the effort, however humble, has not been vain, nor is the writer unrewarded.”
Source: The Mysteries of Udolpho: Horror and Romance
“The passions are the seeds of vices as well as of virtues, from which either may spring, accordingly as they are nurtured. Unhappy they who have never been taught the art to govern them!”
Source: The Mysteries of Udolpho
“Fate sits on these dark battlements and frowns, And as the portal opens to receive me, A voice in hollow murmurs through the courts Tells of a nameless deed.”
“How strange it is, that a fool or knave, with riches, should be treated with more respect by the world, than a good man, or a wise man in poverty!”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Ann Radcliffe (Illustrated)
“When one can hear people moving, one does not so much mind, about one's fears.”
Source: The Mysteries of Udolpho
