Sophie Swetchine

"We are amused through the intellect, but it is the heart that saves us from ennui."

"Truth only is prolific. Error, sterile in itself, produces only by means of the portion of truth which it contains. It may have offspring, but the life which it gives, like that of the hybrid races, cannot be transmitted."

"There is an English song beginning, “Love knocks at the door.” He knocks less often than he finds it open."

"What is resignation? It is putting God between ones self and ones grief."

"Strength alone knows conflict. Weakness is below even defeat, and is born vanquished."

"My experience is that Christianity dispels more mystery than it involves. With Christianity, it is twilight in the world; without it, night. Christianity does not finish the statue,—that is heavens work; but it "rough-hews" all things,—truth, the mind, the soul."

"The inventory of my faith for this lower world is soon made out. I believe in Him who made it."

"America has begun her career at the culminating point of life; as Adam did at the age of thirty."

"The only true method of action in this world is to be in it, but not of it."

"To love deeply in one direction makes us more loving in all others"

"Youth should be a savings-bank."

"The symptoms of compassion and benevolence in some people are like those minute-guns which warn you that you are in deadly peril."