Sophie Swetchine Quotations

There are two ways of attaining an important end, force and perseverance; the silent power of the latter grows irresistible with time.

The mind wears the colors of the soul, as a valet those of his master.

In order to have an enemy, one must be somebody. One must be a force before he can be resisted by another force. A malicious enemy is better than a clumsy friend.

We expect everything and are prepared for nothing.

Strength alone knows conflict, weakness is born vanquished.

The ideal friendship is to feel as one while remaining two.

Travel is the frivolous part of serious lives, and the serious part of frivolous ones.

The chains which cramp us most are those which weigh on us least.

Our vanity is the constant enemy of our dignity.

The best advice on the art of being happy is about as easy to follow as advice to be well when one is sick.

We deceive ourselves when we fancy that only weakness needs support. Strength needs it far more.

In this world of change, nothing which comes stays, and nothing which goes is lost.

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

There are words which are worth as much as the best actions, for they contain the germ of them all.

To love deeply in one direction makes us more loving in all others.

We reform others unconsciously when we walk uprightly.

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.

The law of common sense.

Piety softens all that courage bears.

We are all of us, in this world, more or less like St. January, whom the inhabitants of Naples worship one day, and pelt with baked apples the next.

The inventory of my faith for this lower world is soon made out. I believe in Him who made it.

Faith, amid the disorders of a sinful life, is like the lamp burning in an ancient tomb.

We are often prophets to others only because we are our own historians.

Truth only is prolific. Error, sterile in itself, produces only by means of the portion of truth which it contains. It may have offspring, but the life which it gives, like that of the hybrid races, cannot be transmitted.

We are amused through the intellect, but it is the heart that saves us from ennui.

A malicious enemy is better than a clumsy friend.

There are not good things enough in life to indemnify us for the neglect of a single duty.

The most dangerous of all flattery is the inferiority of those about us.

We are always looking into the future, but we see only the past.

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

The injustice of men subserves the justice of God, and often His mercy.

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

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.

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

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

Since there must be chimeras, why is not perfection the chimera of all men?

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.

God has prohibited despair.

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

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

Those who have suffered much are like those who know many languages; they have learned to understand and be understood by all.

Might we not say to the confused voices which sometimes arise from the depths of our being: "Ladies, be so kind as to speak only four at a time?"

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

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

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.

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.

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

To reveal imprudently the spot where we are most sensitive and vulnerable is to invite a blow. The demigod Achilles admitted no one to his confidence.

The best of lessons, for a good many people, would be to listen at a keyhole. It is a pity for such that the practice is dishonorable.

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

Years do not make sages; they only make old men.

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.

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.

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

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

Time is the shower of Danae; each drop is golden.

The very might of the human intellect reveals its limits.

Men do not go out to meet misfortune as we do. They learn it; and we--we divine it.

True poets, like great artists, have scarcely any childhood, and no old age.

Prayer has a right to the word "ineffable." It is an hour of outpourings which words cannot express,--of that interior speech which we do not articulate, even when we employ it.

Resignation is, to some extent, spoiled for me by the fact that it is so entirely conformable to the laws of common-sense. I should like just a little more of the supernatural in the practice of my favorite virtue.

People read every thing nowadays, except books.

Feeling loves a subdued light.

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

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

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.

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

Real sorrow is almost as difficult to discover as real poverty. An instinctive delicacy hides the rays of the one and the wounds of the other.

When fresh sorrows have caused us to take some steps in the right way, we may not complain. We have invested in a life annuity, but the income remains.

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.

I love victory, but I love not triumph.

Pride dries the tears of anger and vexation; humility, those of grief. The one is indignant that we should suffer; the other calms us by the reminder that we deserve nothing else.

Suspicion has its dupes, as well as credulity.

There is nothing steadfast in life but our memories. We are sure of keeping intact only that which we have lost.

The beings who appear cold, but are only timid, adore where they dare to love.

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

There are but two future verbs which man may appropriate confidently and without pride: "I shall suffer," and "I shall die.

We do not judge men by what they are in themselves, but by what they are relatively to us.

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

When we see the shameful fortunes amassed in all quarters of the globe, are we not impelled to exclaim that Judas' thirty pieces of silver have fructified across the centuries?

There is, by God's grace, an immeasurable distance between late and too late.

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

We must labor unceasingly to render our piety reasonable, and our reason pious.

Where there is a question of economy, I prefer privation.

God Himself allows certain faults; and often we say, "I have deserved to err; I have deserved to be ignorant.

Only those faults which we encounter in ourselves are insufferable to us in others.

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

The root of sanctity is sanity. A man must be healthy before he can be holy. We bathe first, and then perfume.

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 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.

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

Men are always invoking justice; yet it is justice which should make them tremble.

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

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

The heart has always the pardoning power.

We are rich only through what we give.

Those who make us happy are always thankful to us for being so; their gratitude is the reward of their benefits.

Providence has hidden a charm in difficult undertakings, which is appreciated only by those who dare to grapple with them.

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

When any one tells you that he belongs to no party, you may at any rate be sure that he does not belong to yours.