Those eyes that were so bright, love,
Have now a dimmer shine;
But what they've lost in light, love.
Is what they gave to mine.
And, still those orbs reflect, love,
The beams of former hours.
That ripened all my joys, love,
And tinted all my flowers. [ Hood ]
The learn'd reflect on what before they knew. [ Pope ]
Reflect that God, who makes the storm desist,
Can make an angry violent heart subside. [ Robert Browning ]
Excitement is the drunkenness of the spirits.
Only calm waters reflect heaven in their bosom. [ Marguerite de Valois ]
Force yourself to reflect on what you read, paragraph by paragraph. [ Coleridge ]
Those faithful mirrors, which reflect to our mind the minds of sages and heroes. [ Gibbon ]
To do good needs no consideration; it is doubt that makes good evil. Don't reflect; do good as you feel. [ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe ]
When we reflect on the shortness and uncertainty of life, how despicable seem all our pursuits of happiness. [ Hume ]
Reflect upon your present blessings, of which every man has many; not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some. [ Dickens ]
With the world, do not resort to injuries, but only to irony and gayety: injury revolts, while irony makes one reflect, and gayety disarms. [ Voltaire ]
Genius is to other gifts what the carbuncle is to the precious stones. It sends forth its own light, whereas other stones only reflect borrowed light. [ Arthur Schopenhauer ]
The heart must be at rest before the mind, like a quiet lake under an unclouded summer evening, can reflect the solemn starlight and the splendid mysteries of heaven. [ Macdonald Clarke ]
The great silent man! Looking round on the noisy inanity of the world, - words with little meaning, actions with little worth, - one loves to reflect on the great Empire of Silence. [ Carlyle ]
Reflect on death as in Jesus Christ, not as without Jesus Christ. Without Jesus Christ it is dreadful, it is alarming, it is the terror of nature. In Jesus Christ it is fair and lovely, it is good and holy, it is the joy of saints. [ Pascal ]
Simplicity is the straightforwardness of a soul which refuses to reflect on itself or its deeds. Many are sincere without being simple; they do not wish to be taken for other than they are, but they are always afraid of being taken for what they are not. [ Fénelon ]
O mothers! reflect upon the power that your Maker has placed in your hands; there is no earthly influence to be compared with yours; there is no combination of causes so powerful in promoting the happiness or misery of our race, as the instructions of home! [ J. S. C. Abbott ]
Let every mother consider herself as an instrument in the hands of Providence - let her reflect on the immense importance the proper education of one single family may eventually prove; and that, while the fruit of her labors may descend to generations yet unborn, she will herself reap a glorious reward. [ Miss Hamilton ]
Looking round on the noisy inanity of the world, words with little meaning, actions with little worth, one loves to reflect on the great empire of silence. The noble silent men, scattered here and there each in his department, silently thinking, silently working; whom no morning newspaper makes mention of. [ Carlyle ]
Harmony of period and melody of style have greater weight than is generally imagined in the judgment we pass upon writing and writers. As a proof of this, let us reflect what texts of scripture, what lines in poetry, or what periods we most remember and quote, either in verse or prose, and we shall find them to be only musical ones. [ Shenstone ]
There is this difference between those two temporal blessings, health and money: Money is the most envied, but the least enjoyed; health is the most enjoyed, but the least envied: and this superiority of the latter is still more obvious when we reflect that the poorest man would not part with health for money, but that the richest would gladly part with all their money for heath. [ Colton ]
All are to be men of genius in their degree, - rivulets or rivers, it does not matter, so that the souls be clear and pure; not dead walls encompassing dead heaps of things, known and numbered, but running waters in the sweet wilderness of things unnumbered and unknown, conscious only of the living banks, on which they partly refresh and partly reflect the flowers, and so pass on. [ Ruskin ]
Surely no man can reflect, without wonder, upon the vicissitudes of human life arising from causes in the highest degree accidental and trifling. If you trace the necessary concatenation of human events a very little way back, you may perhaps discover that a person's very going in or out of a door has been the means of coloring with misery or happiness the remaining current of his life. [ Lord Greville ]
A newspaper, like a theatre, must mainly owe its continuance in life to the fact that it pleases many persons; and in order to please many persons it will, unconsciously perhaps, respond to their several tastes, reflect their various qualities, and reproduce their views. In a certain sense it is evolved out of the community that absorbs it, and, therefore, partaking of the character of the community, while it may retain many merits and virtues, it will display itself, as in some respects ignorant, trivial, narrow, and vulgar. [ William Winter ]
When I look upon the tombs of the great, every motion of envy dies; when I read the epitaphs of the beautiful, every inordinate desire forsake me: when I meet with the grief of parents upon a tombstone, my heart melts with compassion; when I see the tombs of the parents themselves, I reflect how vain it is to grieve for those whom we must quickly follow; when I see kings lying beside those who deposed them, when I behold rival wits placed side by side, or the holy men who divided the world with their contests and disputes, I reflect with sorrow and astonishment on the frivolous competitions, factions, and debates of mankind. [ Addison ]