142 Quotes by Sophie Swetchine

Virtue is the daughter of Religion; Repentance, her adopted child,--a poor orphan who, without the asylum which she offers, would not know where to hide her sole treasure, her tears!

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.

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

There are minds constructed like the eyes of certain insects, which discern, with admirable distinctness, the most delicate lineaments and finest veins of the leaf which bears them, but are totally unable to take in the ensemble of the plant or shrub. When error has effected an entrance into such minds, it remains there impregnable, because no general view assists them in throwing off the chance impression of the moment.

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.

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

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.