“Of all false assertions that ever went into the world under the banner of a great name and the mail armor of a well-turned phrase, Locke's comparison of the mind to a blank sheet of paper appears to me among the most untrue.”
Source: Romance and reality, by L.E.L.
“One would think that an unsuccessful volume was like a degree in the school of reviewing. One unread work makes the judge bitter enough; but a second failure, and he is quite desperate in his damnation. I do believe one half of the injustice - the severity of 'the ungentle craft' originates in its own want of success: they cannot forgive the popularity which has passed them over.”
Source: The Complete Works of L. E. Landon ...
“Curiosity and courtesy are very often at variance.”
“Curiosity is its own suicide.”
Source: Romance and Reality
“marriage is like money - seem to want it, and you never get it.”
Source: Romance and Reality
“though fortune's wheel is generally on the turn, sometimes when it gets into the mud, it sticks there.”
Source: Romance and Reality
“doubts, like facts, are stubborn things.”
Source: Romance and Reality
“I hate the word 'ought' - it always implies something dull, cold, and commonplace. The 'ought nots' of life are its pleasantest things.”
Source: Ethel Churchill: Or, The Two Brides ...
“It is curious how inseparable eating and kindness are with some people.”
Source: Romance and Reality
“Ignorance, far more than idleness, is the mother of all the vices; and how recent has been the admission, that knowledge should be the portion of all? The destinies of the future lie in judicious education; an education that must be universal, to be beneficial.”
Source: Ethel Churchill: Or, The Two Brides ...
“There is no denying that there are 'royal roads' through existence for the upper classes; for them, at least, the highways are macadamized, swept, and watered.”
Source: The Works of L.E. Landon in Two Volumes
“English people ... never speak, excepting in cases of fire or murder, unless they are introduced.”
Source: The Book of Beauty: Comprising a Collection of Tales, Poems, &c
“Suicide and antipathy to fires in a bedroom seem to be among the national characteristics. Perhaps the same moral cause may originate both.”
Source: Romance and Reality
“there can be neither politically nor morally a good which is not universal ... we cannot reform for a time or for a class, but for all and for the whole, and our very interests will draw us together in one wide bond of sympathy.”
Source: The Complete Works of L. E. Landon: Containing Romance and Reality, Francesca Carrara, Traits and Trials of Early Life, Ethel Church, the Book of Beauty, Improvisatrice, the Troubadour, Venetian Bracelet, Golden Violet, Vow of the Peacock, Easter Gift, &c., &c
“Anticipation is a bad sleeping draught.”
Source: Romance and Reality
“no hour arrives so soon as the one we dread.”
Source: Romance and Reality
“Experience teaches, it is true; but she never teaches in time.”
Source: Romance and Reality
“Fame is bought by happiness.”
Source: Ethel Churchill: Or, The Two Brides
“That which is always within our reach, is always the last thing we take; and the chances are, that what we can do every day, we never do at all.”
Source: Romance and Reality
“Farewell's a bitter word to say.”
Source: Life and literary remains of L.E.L. [ed.] by L. Blanchard
“The very effort to forget teaches us to remember.”
Source: Ethel Churchill: Or, The Two Brides ...
“ingratitude is the necessary consequence of receiving favors of which we are ashamed.”
“habit is our idea of eternity.”
Source: The Book of Beauty: Comprising a Collection of Tales, Poems, &c
“Habit is a second nature, and what was at first pleasure, is next necessity.”
Source: Romance and Reality
“It is a curious fact, but a fact it is, that your witty people are the most hard-hearted in the world. The truth is, fancy destroys feeling. The quick eye to the ridiculous turns every thing to the absurd side; and the neat sentence, the lively allusion, and the odd simile, invest what they touch with something of their own buoyant nature. Humor is of the heart, and has its tears; but wit is of the head, and has only smiles - and the majority of those are bitter.”
Source: The Complete Works of L. E. Landon: Containing Romance and Reality, Francesca Carrara, Traits and Trials of Early Life, Ethel Church, the Book of Beauty, Improvisatrice, the Troubadour, Venetian Bracelet, Golden Violet, Vow of the Peacock, Easter Gift, &c., &c
“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. Toil and illusion are the only secrets to make life tolerable.”
Source: Francesca Carrara
“The old proverb, applied to fire and water, may with equal truth be applied to the imagination - it is a good servant, but a bad master.”
Source: Romance and Reality
“We are rarely wrong when we act from impulse.”
Source: Ethel Churchill: Or, The Two Brides
“Strange the affection which clings to inanimate objects - objects which cannot even know our love! But it is not return that constitutes the strength of an attachment.”
Source: Romance and Reality
“Jealousy ought to be tragic, to save it from being ridiculous.”
Source: Romance and Reality
“Knowledge is much like dust - it sticks to one, one does not know how.”
Source: Romance and Reality
“words alike make the destiny of empires and of individuals. Ambition, love, hate, interest, vanity, have words for their engines, and need none more powerful. Language is a fifth element - the one by which all the others are swayed.”
Source: Francesca Carrara
“I do not think that life has a suspense more sickening than that of expecting a letter which does not come.”
Source: The Complete Works of L. E. Landon ...
“Our first love-letter ... There is so much to be said, and which no words seems exactly to say - the dread of saying too much is so nicely balanced by the fear of saying too little. Hope borders on presumption, and fear on reproach.”
Source: Romance and Reality
“the fact is, that life is too short to be occupied by aught but the present - hope and remembrance are equally a waste of time.”
Source: The Complete Works of L.E. Landon
“Nothing more strongly marks the insufficiency of luxuries than the ease with which people grow accustomed to them; they are rather known by their want than by their presence. The word 'blasé' has been coined expressly for the use of the upper classes.”
Source: The Works of L. E. Landon: In Two Volumes
“Politeness, however, acts the lady's maid to our thoughts; and they are washed, dressed, curled, rouged, and perfumed, before they are presented to the public.”
Source: Romance and Reality
“the blessings of matrimony, like those of poverty, belong rather to philosophy than reality.”
Source: Romance and Reality
“In marriage, as in chemistry, opposites have often an attraction.”
Source: Romance and Reality
“Memory has many conveniences, and, among others, that of foreseeing things as they have afterwards happened.”
Source: Francesca Carrara
“Perhaps, from an innate desire of justification, sorrow always exaggerates itself. Memory is quite one of Job's friends; and the past is ever ready to throw its added darkness on the present.”
Source: Romance and Reality
“Restraint is the golden rule of enjoyment.”
Source: Romance and reality, by L.E.L.
“How beautiful, how buoyant, and glad is morning!”
“How very satisfactory those discussions must be, where each party retains their own opinion!”
Source: Romance and Reality
“Nothing is so fortunate for mankind as its diversity of opinion.”
Source: Romance and Reality
“The past is perpetual youth to the heart.”
Source: The Complete Works of L.E. Landon
“To enjoy yourself is the easy method to give enjoyment to others.”
Source: The Book of Beauty: Comprising a Collection of Tales, Poems, &c
“To this hour, the great science and duty of politics is lowered by the petty leaven of small and personal advantage.”
Source: Ethel Churchill: Or, The Two Brides ...
“of all the follies that we can commit, the greatest is to hesitate.”
“Alas! we give our own coloring to the actions of others.”
