There are in existence two periods when we shrink from any great vicissitude—early youth and old age. In the middle of life, we are indifferent to change ; for we have discovered that nothing is, in the end, so good or so bad as it at first appeared.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

there is nothing so easy as to be wise for others; a species of prodigality, by-the-by - for such wisdom is wholly wasted.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

wise easy advice

Affection exaggerates its own offenses.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

offense affection

it is a curious fact, but one which all experience owns, that people do not desire so much to appear better, as to appear different from what they really are.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

desire people thinking

anybody's applause is better than nobody's.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

applause

in came ... a baby, eloquent as infancy usually is, and like most youthful orators, more easily heard than understood.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

infancy heard baby

A preface is a species of literary luxury, where an author, like a lover, is privileged to be egotistical.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

luxury lovers book

Business before pleasure.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

pleasure business

Consistency is a human word, but it certainly expresses nothing human.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

consistency routine change

charity is a calm, severe duty; it must be intellectual, to be advantageous. It is a strange mistake that it should ever be considered a merit; its fulfillment is only what we owe to each other, and is a debt never paid to its full extent.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

compassion intellectual mistake

I can pass days

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

sunshine nature fall

Conscience, like a child, is soon lulled to sleep.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

conscience sleep children

Of all false assertions that ever went into the world under the banner of a great name and the mail armor of a well-turned phrase, Locke's comparison of the mind to a blank sheet of paper appears to me among the most untrue.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

armor names mind

One would think that an unsuccessful volume was like a degree in the school of reviewing. One unread work makes the judge bitter enough; but a second failure, and he is quite desperate in his damnation. I do believe one half of the injustice - the severity of 'the ungentle craft' originates in its own want of success: they cannot forgive the popularity which has passed them over.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

believe school thinking

Curiosity and courtesy are very often at variance.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

variance courtesy curiosity

The stars are so far, far away!

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

far-away stars

How often, in this cold and bitter world, is the warm heart thrown back upon itself! Cold, careless, are we of another's grief; we wrap ourselves in sullen selfishness.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

selfishness grief heart

Do anything but love; or if thou lovest and art a woman, hide thy love from him whom thou dost worship; never let him know how dear he is; flit like a bird before him; lead him from tree to tree, from flower to flower; but be not won, or thou wilt, like that bird, when caught and caged, be left to pine neglected and perish in forgetfulness.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

flower love art

We are ourselves the stumbling-blocks in the way of our happiness. Place a common individual - by common, I mean with the common share of stupidity, custom, and discontent - place him in the garden of Eden, and he would not find it out unless he were told, and when told, he would not believe it.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

block mean believe

Whenever I hear a man talking of the advantages of our ill-used sex, I look upon it as the prelude to some new act of authority.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

talking men sex

Truly, a little love-making is a very pleasant thing.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

little-love love-making littles