The quote database

If sorrow in its reaction makes us think of our friends, let my name come among the list of yours to you, and with it let the thought come that I am not the coldest and least sincere.

we never could differ about the worth and comfort of domestic affection

Husband, lover, nurse--not one of these, has Robert been to me, but all three together.

Oh, if our friends would but put off anatomising one till after one was safely dead, and call to mind that, previously, we have nerves to be agonised and morbid brains to be driven mad!

The motto should not be: Forgive one another; rather, Understand one another.

The ultimate foundation of a free society is the binding tie of cohesive sentiment.

Life is a mirror, and we find only ourselves reflected in our associates.

What greater thing is there for two human souls than to feel that they are joined for life—to strengthen each other in all labour, to rest on each other in all sorrow, to minister to each other in all pain, to be one with each other in silent unspeakable memories at the moment of the last parting?

What do we live for, if it is not to make life less difficult to each other?

We must hope to give them a sense of what it means to be a loyal friend, a loving parent, a citizen who leaves his home, his neighborhood and town better than he found it.

Civility is not a tactic or a sentiment. It is the determined choice of trust over cynicism, of community over chaos.

Had it not been for the persistent encouragement of Miss Sullivan, I think I should have given up trying to write altogether.

Nothing is more characteristic of a man than the manner in which he behaves toward fools.

Nothing makes the earth seem so spacious as to have friends at a distance; they make the latitudes and longitudes.

What wealth is it to have such friends that we cannot think of them without elevation!

Tell all my friends in Concord that I do not send my love, but retain it still.

Methinks, if I loved him more, I should keep him--I should keep myself rather--at a more respectful distance.

At death our friends and relations either draw nearer to us and are found out, or depart further from us and are forgotten.

Friends are as often brought nearer together as separated by death.

Fatal is the discovery that our friend is fallible, that he has prejudices.

Having treated my friend ill, I wished to apologize; but, not meeting him, I made an apology to myself.

What signifies the census--this periodical numbering of men--to one who has no friend?

Our thoughts would imply that other men have friends, though we have not.

In short, we ought to do justice in a kindly spirit to all nations and require justice from them in return.

The friend, however, took her in, and the friend's husband was obliged to sleep upon a bench in the park every night for a week, which he did uncomplainingly if not cheerfully.