“On love, on grief, on every human thing, Time sprinkles Lethe's water with his wing.”

Time as a forgetful force · Conversation / essay (as commonly attributed)

• Forgetting
• Humanity
• Time

“Death stands above me, Whispering low I know not what into my ear.”

The intimate approach of death · Conversation / essay (as commonly attributed)

• Death
• Fear
• Mystery

“No truer word, save God's, was ever spoken, Than that the largest heart is soonest broken.”

The vulnerability of a large heart · Conversation / essay (as commonly attributed)

• Heart
• Sorrow
• Truth

“The highest price we can pay for anything, is to ask it.”

Asking as the ultimate cost · Conversation / essay (as commonly attributed)

• Asking
• Cost
• Price

“The assailant is often in the right.”

The attacker may be justified · Conversation / essay (as commonly attributed)

• Attack
• Justice
• Right

“It often comes into my head That we may dream when we are dead, But I am far from sure we do. O that it were so! then my rest Would be indeed among the blest; I should for ever dream of you.”

A wish for eternal dreaming · Conversation / essay (as commonly attributed)

• Death
• Dreams
• Love

“We care not how many see us in choler, when we rave and bluster, and make as much noise and bustle as we can; but if the kindest and most generous affection comes across us, we suppress every sign of it, and hide ourselves in nooks and covert.”

We hide our tenderness, not our anger · Conversation / essay (as commonly attributed)

• Anger
• Privacy
• Tenderness

“Lives I have read which, if they were not, had the appearance, the interest, and the utility of truth.”

The value of biographies even if not strictly true · Conversation / essay (as commonly attributed)

• Biography
• Truth
• Utility

“The seeds of great events lie near the surface; historians delve too deep for them.”

Historians overcomplicate causes · Conversation / essay (as commonly attributed)

• Causes
• Events
• History

“God made the rose out of what was left of woman at the creation. The great difference is, we feel the rose's thorns when we gather it; and the other's when we have had it for some time.”

A witty comparison of roses and women · Conversation / essay (as commonly attributed)

• Roses
• Wit
• Women

“The elevated mind takes in and breathes out again that which would be uncongenial to the baser; and the baser draws life and enjoyment from that which would be putridity to the loftier.”

Different minds react differently to the same things · Conversation / essay (as commonly attributed)

• Mind
• Nature
• Taste

“Happiness, like air and water, the other two great requisites of life, is composite.”

Happiness as a complex necessity · Conversation / essay (as commonly attributed)

• Complexity
• Happiness
• Life

“The spirit of Greece, passing through and ascending above the world, hath so animated universal nature, that the very rocks and woods, the very torrents and wilds burst forth with it.”

The enduring spirit of Greece in nature · Conversation / essay (as commonly attributed)

• Greece
• Nature
• Spirit

“Friendship may sometimes step a few paces in advance of truth.”

Friendship's precedence over truth · Conversation / essay (as commonly attributed)

• Friendship
• Loyalty
• Truth

“Impatience is a proof of inferior strength, and a destroyer of what little there may be.”

Impatience as weakness · Conversation / essay (as commonly attributed)

• Impatience
• Patience
• Strength

“O what a thing is age! Death without death's quiet.”

Age as restless death · Conversation / essay (as commonly attributed)

• Age
• Death
• Rest

“No thoroughly occupied person was ever found really miserable.”

Occupation as a cure for misery · Conversation / essay (as commonly attributed)

• Happiness
• Misery
• Occupation

“We talk on principal, but act on motivation.”

The gap between principle and action · Conversation / essay (as commonly attributed)

• Action
• Motivation
• Principle

“I praised a line of Scott's on the dog of a traveler lost in the snow (if I remember) on Skidlaw.”

Admiration for Scott's poetry · Letter to Ralph Waldo Emerson

• Memory
• Poetry
• Praise

“Great men too often have greater faults than little men can find room for.”

The scale of great men's faults · Conversation / essay (as commonly attributed)

• Faults
• Greatness
• Men

“I am fond of children (except boys).”

A preference for girls · Letter (as quoted in The Irish Times, 1998)

• Children
• Gender
• Preference

“I would add as Preface these words, There may be opinions, in one or other of these Conversations, which belong to the characters and age of the interlocutors, and which have been expresst by them in their writings, yet which can have no influence on our happier times.”

Historical context of opinions · Preface to Imaginary Conversations (letter, 1845)

• History
• Opinions
• Preface

“Any conversation could be ruined unless it had a certain amount of witticism.”

Wit as essential to good conversation · Conversation (as reported in Griffin Daily News, 1971)

• Conversation
• Society
• Wit

“Of all failures, to fail in a witticism is the worst, and the mishap is the more calamitous in a drawn out and detailed one.”

The disaster of a failed witticism · Conversation (as reported in Griffin Daily News, 1971)

• Conversation
• Failure
• Wit