Ann Radcliffe

A well-informed mind is the best security against the contagion of folly and of vice. The vacant mind is ever on the watch for relief, and ready to plunge into error, to escape from the languor of idleness.

The refreshing pleasure from the first view of nature, after the pain of illness, and the confinement of a sick-chamber, is above the conceptions, as well as the descriptions, of those in health.

The world ridicules a passion which it seldom feels; its scenes, and its interests, distract the mind, deprave the taste, corrupt the heart, and love cannot exist in a heart that has lost the meek dignity of innocence.

Virtue and taste are nearly the same, for virtue is little more than active taste, and the most delicate affections of each combine in real love.

Poverty cannot deprive us of many consolations. It cannot rob us of the affection we have for each other, or degrade us in our own opinion, of in that of any person, whose opinion we ought to value.

There is some comfort in dying surrounded by one's children.

And since, in our passage through this world, painful circumstances occur more frequently than pleasing ones, and since our sense of evil is, I fear, more acute than our sense of good, we become the victims of our feelings, unless we can in some degree command them.

Happiness arises in a state of peace, not of tumult.

One act of beneficence, one act of real usefulness, is worth all the abstract sentiment in the world. Sentiment is a disgrace, instead of an ornament, unless it lead us to good actions.

What has a man's face to do with his character? Can a man of good character help having a disagreeable face?

I never trust people's assertions, I always judge of them by their actions.

Such is the inconsistency of real love, that it is always awake to suspicion, however unreasonable; always requiring new assurances from the object of its interest.

When one can hear people moving, one does not so much mind, about one's fears.

It is dismal coming home, when there is nobody to welcome one!

Employment is the surest antidote to sorrow.

There is some magic in wealth, which can thus make persons pay their court to it, when it does not even benefit themselves. How strange it is, that a fool or knave, with riches, should be treated with more respect by the world, than a good man, or a wise man in poverty!

When the mind has once begun to yield to the weakness of superstition, trifles impress it with the force of conviction.

What are riches - grandeur - health itself, to the luxury of a pure conscience, the health of the soul; - and what the sufferings of poverty, disappointment, despair - to the anguish of an afflicted one!

I tasted too what was called the sweet of revenge - but it was transient, it expired even with the object, that provoked it.

The passions are the seeds of vices as well as of virtues, from which either may spring, accordingly as they are nurtured. Unhappy they who have never been taught the art to govern them!

Though the vicious can sometimes pour affliction upon the good, their power is transient and their punishment certain; and that innocence, though oppressed by injustice, shall, supported by patience, finally triumph over misfortune!

If the weak hand, that has recorded this tale, has, by its scenes, beguiled the mourner of one hour of sorrow, or, by its moral, taught him to sustain it - the effort, however humble, has not been vain, nor is the writer unrewarded.