All quotes

Once I wished not to live, but the faculty of life seems to have sprung up in me again, from under the crushing foot of heavy grief.

The unity of God preserves a unity in men--that is, a perpetual sympathy between man and man--which sympathy we must be subject to, if not in our joys, yet in our griefs.

There is only one event in my life which never loses its bitterness; which comes back on me like a retreating wave, going and coming again, which was and is my grief--I never had but one brother who loved and comprehended me.

When gone from hence, may nobody think of me again, except when one or two may think perhaps how I loved them

He did not know how long he sat there or what was happening to him, but at last he moved as if he were awakening and he got up slowly and stood on the moss carpet, drawing a long, deep, soft breath and wondering at himself. Something seemed to have been unbound and released in him, very quietly.

You have summoned me in my weakness; you must sustain me by your strength.

Brothers and sisters we were by blood; but slavery had made us strangers.

Pain and suffering are always inevitable for a large intelligence and a deep heart

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?

Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live:

Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

When I saw them embracing each other, and heard their joyous laughter, I turned sadly away from the lovely sight.

A man must understand evil and be acquainted with sorrow before he can write himself an optimist and expect others to believe that he has reason for the faith that is in him.

The gloom of an eternal mourning enwraps, more or less closely, every serious and thoughtful soul, as night enwraps the universe.

My saddest and most genuine sorrows are apt to be but transient regrets.

The place of sorrow is supplied, perchance, by a certain hard and proportionately barren indifference.

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.

Surely civilization is old enough, surely mankind is mature enough so that we ought in our own lifetime to find a way to permanent peace.

Sorrow purifies and deepens the soul, and the extremity of sorrow is the prelude to Truth.

For life and death are one, even as the river and the sea are one.

Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way

But, you see, Jo wasn’t a heroine, she was only a struggling human girl like hundreds of others, and she just acted out her nature, being sad, cross, listless, or energetic, as the mood suggested.

Feeling this, Jo’s burden seemed easier to bear, duty grew sweeter, and life looked more endurable, seen from the safe shelter of her mother’s arms.

She gave him entire confidence, he gave her the help she needed, and both found consolation in the act.