A more secret, sweet, and overpowering beauty appears to man when his heart and mind open to the sentiment of virtue.

Jesus Christ belonged to the true race of prophets. He saw with open eye the mystery of the soul. Drawn by its severe harmony, ravished with its beauty, he lived in it and had his being there. Alone in all history, he estimated the greatness of man.

Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius and it’s better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring.

To practice five things under all circumstances constitutes perfect virtue; these five are gravity, generosity of soul, sincerity, earnestness, and kindness.

What a terrible thing to have lost one’s mind. Or not to have a mind at all. How true that is.

There is always the danger that we may just do the work for the sake of the work. This is where the respect and the love and the devotion come in – that we do it to God, to Christ, and that’s why we try to do it as beautifully as possible.

It’s always wonderful to get to know women, with the mystery and the joy and the depth. If you can make a woman laugh, you’re seeing the most beautiful thing on God’s Earth.

Sometimes the heart sees what is invisible to the eye.

Nothing is ever done beautifully which is done in rivalship: or nobly, which is done in pride.

Tears come from the heart and not from the brain.

Kindness in women, not their beauteous looks, shall win my love.

It’s with bad sentiments that one makes good novels.

Wrinkles should merely indicate where smiles have been.

The finest works of art are precious, among other reasons, because they make it possible for us to know, if only imperfectly and for a little while, what it actually feels like to think subtly and feel nobly.

Suspicion is far more to be wrong than right; more often unjust than just. It is no friend to virtue, and always an enemy to happiness.

Iron rusts from disuse; water loses its purity from stagnation… even so does inaction sap the vigor of the mind.

Knowledge becomes evil if the aim be not virtuous.

God Almighty first planted a garden. And indeed, it is the purest of human pleasures.

The first man to compare the cheeks of a young woman to a rose was obviously a poet; the first to repeat it was possibly an idiot.

Those who intend on becoming great should love neither themselves nor their own things, but only what is just, whether it happens to be done by themselves or others.

Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious.

This life, which had been the tomb of his virtue and of his honour, is but a walking shadow; a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more: it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

What the statesman is most anxious to produce is a certain moral character in his fellow citizens, namely a disposition to virtue and the performance of virtuous actions.

The mere thought hadn’t even begun to speculate about the merest possibility of crossing my mind.

Despair is a narcotic. It lulls the mind into indifference.

All the gold which is under or upon the earth is not enough to give in exchange for virtue.

Virtue itself scapes not calumnious strokes.

Beauty has as many meanings as man has moods. Beauty is the symbol of symbols. Beauty reveals everything, because it expresses nothing. When it shows us itself, it shows us the whole fiery-coloured world.

Glory follows virtue as if it were its shadow.

Even with all of the things that are so awful, if you walk into your yard and stay there looking at almost anything for five minutes, you will be stunned by how marvelous life is and how incredibly lucky we are to have it.

Talent grips us. We are overtaken by the beauty of Michelangelo’s sculpture, riveted by Mariah Carey’s angelic voice, doubled over in laughter by the comedy of Robin Williams, and captivated by the on screen performances of Denzel Washington.

In action a great heart is the chief qualification. In work, a great head.

She is a peacock in everything but beauty.

Know then this truth, enough for man to know virtue alone is happiness below.

No matter how beautiful a woman might be, you’re always threatened by certain… You’re always threatened by other women, period.

What a waste it is to lose one’s mind. Or not to have a mind is being very wasteful. How true that is.

Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns.

Literature, not scripture, sustains the mind and – since there is no other metaphor – also the soul.

Man seems to be capable of great virtues but not of small virtues; capable of defying his torturer but not of keeping his temper.

Tyrants have always some slight shade of virtue; they support the laws before destroying them.

Virtue is a state of war, and to live in it we have always to combat with ourselves.

Who sows virtue reaps honor.

Nature has planted in our minds an insatiable longing to see the truth.

Those who cannot work with their hearts achieve but a hollow, half-hearted success that breeds bitterness all around.

Whatever your heart clings to and confides in, that is really your God.

I often think that the night is more alive and more richly colored than the day.

I have often said that the lure of flying is the lure of beauty.

When we contemplate the whole globe as one great dewdrop, striped and dotted with continents and islands, flying through space with other stars all singing and shining together as one, the whole universe appears as an infinite storm of beauty.

You have been chosen, and you must therefore use such strength and heart and wits as you have.

I don’t think of all the misery but of the beauty that still remains.

There is something terribly morbid in the modern sympathy with pain. One should sympathise with the colour, the beauty, the joy of life. The less said about life’s sores the better.

Beauty is everywhere a welcome guest.

Horses make a landscape look beautiful.

There will be no lasting peace either in the heart of individuals or in social customs until death is outlawed.

Accept the things to which fate binds you, and love the people with whom fate brings you together, but do so with all your heart.

Hallow the body as a temple to comeliness and sanctify the heart as a sacrifice to love; love recompenses the adorers.

A woman’s heart must be of such a size and no larger, else it must be pressed small, like Chinese feet; her happiness is to be made as cakes are, by a fixed recipe.

The difference is too nice – Where ends the virtue or begins the vice.

It is one of the superstitions of the human mind to have imagined that virginity could be a virtue.

No; we have been as usual asking the wrong question. It does not matter a hoot what the mockingbird on the chimney is singing. The real and proper question is: Why is it beautiful?

It was morning; through the high window I saw the pure, bright blue of the sky as it hovered cheerfully over the long roofs of the neighboring houses. It too seemed full of joy, as if it had special plans, and had put on its finest clothes for the occasion.