Best 112 quotes of Sophie Swetchine on MyQuotes

A friendship will be young after the lapse of half a century; a passion is old at the end of three months.

A good, finished scandal, fully armed and equipped, such as circulates in the world, is rarely the production of a single individual, or even of a single coterie. It sees the light in one; is rocked and nurtured in another; is petted, developed, and attains its growth in a third; and receives its finishing touches only after passing through a multitude of hands. It is a child that can count a host of fathers--all ready to disown it.

All the joys of earth will not assuage our thirst for happiness; while a single grief suffices to shroud life in a sombre veil, and smite it with nothingness at all points.

A malicious enemy is better than a clumsy friend.

America has begun her career at the culminating point of life, as Adam did at the age of thirty.

Antiquity is a species of aristocracy with which it is not easy to be on visiting terms.

As we advance in life the circle of our pains enlarges, while that of our pleasures contracts.

Attention is a silent and perpetual flattery.

By becoming unhappy, we sometimes learn how to be less so.

Consolation heaps without contact; somewhat like the blessed air which we need but to breathe.

Death is the justification of all the ways of the Christian, the last end of all his sacrifices, the touch of the Great Master which completes the picture.

Feeling loves a subdued light.

Friendship is like those ancient altars where the unhappy, and even the guilty, found a sure asylum.

He who has ceased to enjoy his friend's superiority has ceased to love him.

He who has never denied himself for the sake of giving has but glanced at the joys of charity.

I can understand the things that afflict mankind, but I often marvel at God those which console. An atom may wound, but God alone can heal.

If grief is to be mitigated, it must either wear itself out or be shared.

If it were ever allowable to forget what is due to superiority of rank, it would be when the privileged themselves remember it.

If we look closely at this earth, where God seems so utterly forgotten, we shall find that it is He, after all, who commands the most fidelity and the most love.

I like people to be saints; but I want them to be first and superlatively honest men.

Impassioned characters never attain their mark till they have overshot it.

In a healthy state of the organism all wounds have a tendency to heal.

Indifferent souls never part. Impassioned souls part, and return to one another, because they can do no better.

Indulgence is lovely in the sinless; toleration, adorable in the pious and believing heart.

In retirement, the passage of time seems accelerated. Nothing warns us of its flight. It is a wave which never murmurs, because there is no obstacle to its flow.

In this world of change naught which comes stays and naught which goes is lost.

In youth we feel richer for every new illusion; in maturer years, for every one we lose.

In youth, grief comes with a rush and overflow, but it dries up, too, like the torrent. In the winter of life it remains a miserable pool, resisting all evaporation.

I study much, and the more I study, the oftener I go back to those first principles which are so simple that childhood itself can lisp them.

It is a little stream, which flows softly, but freshens everything along its course.

It would seem that by our sorrows only are we called to a knowledge of the Infinite. Are we happy? The limits of life constrain us on all sides.

Kindness causes us to learn, and to forget, many things.

Let our lives be pure as snowfields, where our steps leave a mark but no stain.

Let us not fail to scatter along our pathway the seeds of kindness and sympathy. Some of them will doubtless perish; but if one only lives, it will perfume our steps and rejoice our eyes.

Let us resist the opinion of the world fearlessly, provided only that our self-respect grows in proportion to our indifference.

Let us shun everything, which might tend to efface the primitive lineaments of our individuality. Let us reflect that each one of us is a thought of God.

Liberty must be a mighty thing; for by it God punishes and rewards nations.

Life grows darker as we go on, till only one pure light is left shining on it; and that is faith. Old age, like solitude and sorrow, has its revelations.

Love sometimes elevates, creates new qualities, suspends the working of evil inclinations; but only for a day. Love, then, is an Oriental despot, whose glance lifts a slave from the dust, and then consigns him to it again.

Loving souls are like paupers. They live on what is given them.

Miracles are God's coups d'etat.

My sole defense against the natural horror which death inspires is to love beyond it.

Old age is not one of the beauties of creation, but it is one of its harmonies.

Old age is not one of the beauties of creation, but it is one of its harmonies. The law of contrasts is one of the laws of beauty. Under the conditions of our climate, shadow gives light its worth; sternness enhances mildness; solemnity, splendor. Varying proportions of size support and subserve one another.

Old age is the night of life, as night is the old age of the day. Still, night is full of magnificence; and, for many, it is more brilliant than the day.

One must be a somebody before they can have an enemy. One must be a force before he can be resisted by another force.

Our faults afflict us more than our good deeds console. Pain is ever uppermost in the conscience as in the heart.

Our vanity is the constant enemy of our dignity.

People read every thing nowadays, except books.

Poor humanity!--so dependent, so insignificant, and yet so great.