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SWETCHINE, Madam Quotes
(1782-1857), Russian mystic
Those who have suffered much are like those who know many languages; they have learned to understand and be understood by all.
Years do not make sages; they only make old men.
As we advance in life the circle of our pains enlarges, while that of our pleasures contracts.
How easy to be amiable in the midst of happiness and success.
In this world of change naught which comes stays, and naught which goes is lost.
We are rich only through what we give; and poor only through what we refuse and keep.
He who has never denied himself for the sake of giving, has but glanced at the joys of charity.
The best of lessons, for a good many people, would be, to listen at a key hole.—It is a pity for such that the practice is dishonorable.
The fact that God has prohibited despair gives misfortune the right to hope all things, and leaves hope free to dare all things.
There are not good things enough in life, to indemnify us for the neglect of a single duty.
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.
There is a transcendent power in example. We reform others unconsciously, when we walk uprightly.
We are often prophets to others, only because we are our own historians.
The heart has always the pardoning power.
We forgive too little; forget too much.
If we look closely at this world, where God seems so utterly forgotten, we shall find that it is he, who, after all, commands the most fidelity and the most love.
Those who make us happy are always thankful to us for being so; their gratitude is the reward of their benefits.
The best advice on the art of being happy is about as easy to follow as advice to be well when one is sick.
To have ideas is to gather flowers; to think, is to weave them into garlands.
We do not judge men by what they are in themselves, but by what they are relatively to us.
In the opinion of the world marriage ends all, as it does in a comedy.—The truth is precisely the reverse; it begins all.
It is a little stream which flows softly, but it freshens everything along its course.
There are two ways of attaining an important end—force and perseverance. Force falls to the lot only of the privileged few, but austere and sustained perseverance can be practised by the most insignificant. Its silent power grows irresistible with time.
"Prayer," says St. Jerome, "is a groan." Ah! our groans are prayers as well. The very cry of distress is an involuntary appeal to that invisible Power whose aid the soul invokes.
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 remembered it.
Resignation is putting God between ourselves and our troubles.
Strength alone knows conflict; weakness is below even defeat, and is born vanquished.
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.
The world has no sympathy with any but positive griefs; it will pity you for what you lose, but never for what you lack.
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.
Each moment, as it passes, is the meeting place of two eternities.
What I most value next to eternity, is time.
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.
When two truths seem directly opposed to each other, we must not question either, but remember there is a third—God—who reserves to himself the right to harmonize them.
It is the enemy who keeps the sentinel watchful.
The only true method of action in this world is to be in it, but not of it.
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