A letter always seemed to me like Immortality, for is it not the Mind alone, without corporeal friend?
—Emily Dickinson (1830–86) American Poet
Life is too precious to be spent in this weaving and unweaving of false impressions, and it is better to live quietly under some degree of misrepresentation than to attempt to remove it by the uncertain process of letter-writing.
—George Eliot (Mary Anne Evans) (1819–80) English Novelist
Never write a letter while you are angry.
—Chinese Proverb
Go to the effort. Invest the time. Write the letter. Make the apology. Take the trip. Purchase the gift. Do it. The seized opportunity renders joy. The neglected brings regret.
—Max Lucado (b.1955) American Christian Author, Minister
He who writes love letters must have clammy hands.
—German Proverb
A profusion of fancies and quotations is out of place in a love-letter.—True feeling is always direct, and never deviates into by-ways to cull flowers of rhetoric.
—Christian Nestell Bovee (1820–1904) American Writer, Aphorist
When a man sends you an impudent letter, sit right down and give it back to him with interest ten times compounded, and then throw both letters in the wastebasket.
—Elbert Hubbard (1856–1915) American Writer, Publisher, Artist, Philosopher
A good figure is better than a reference letter.
—French Proverb
Never write a letter if you can help it, and never destroy one.
—John A. Macdonald (1815–91) Prime Minister of Canada
Who writes love letters grows thin; who carries them, fat.
—Dutch Proverb
A strange volume of real life in the daily packet of the postman. Eternal love and instant payment.
—Douglas William Jerrold (1803–57) English Writer, Dramatist, Wit
The true character of epistolary style is playfulness and urbanity.
—Joseph Joubert (1754–1824) French Writer, Moralist
The best time to frame an answer to the letters of a friend, is the moment you receive them. Then the warmth of friendship, and the intelligence received, most forcibly cooperate.
—William Shenstone (1714–63) British Poet, Landscape Gardener
A letter does not blush.
—Cicero (106BCE–43BCE) Roman Philosopher, Orator, Politician, Lawyer
Then there’s the joy of getting your desk clean, and knowing that all your letters are answered, and you can see the wood on it again.
—Lady Bird Johnson (1912–2007) First Lady of the United States, Conservationist
Sir, more than kisses, letters mingle souls. For, thus friends absent speak.
—John Donne (1572–1631) English Poet, Cleric
If I had more time I would write a shorter letter.
—Blaise Pascal (1623–62) French Mathematician, Physicist, Theologian
The first love letters are written with the eyes.
—French Proverb
I consider it a good rule for letter-writing to leave unmentioned what the recipient already knows, and instead tell him something new.
—Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) Austrian Psychiatrist, Psychoanalytic
I hear and behold God in every object, yet understand God not in the least…
I see something of God each hour of the twenty-four, and each moment then,
In the faces of men and women I see God, and in my own face in the glass;
I find letters from God dropped in the street, and everyone is signed by God’s name,
And I leave them where they are, for I know
that whereso’er I go
Others will punctually come forever and ever.
—Walt Whitman (1819–92) American Poet, Essayist, Journalist, American, Poet, Essayist, Journalist
It seems a long time since the morning mail could be called correspondence.
—Jacques Barzun (b.1907) French-born American Historian, Philosophers
I hold that the parentheses are by far the most important parts of a non-business letter.
—D. H. Lawrence (1885–1930) English Novelist, Playwright, Poet, Essayist, Literary Critic
Friends will write me letters. They run out of room on the front of the letter. They write “over” on the bottom of the letter. Like I’m that much of a moron. Like I need that there. Because if it wasn’t there, I’d get to the bottom of the page: “And so Kathy and I went shopping and we..”. That’s the craziest thing! I don’t know why she would just end it that way.
—Ellen DeGeneres (b.1958) American Comedian, Television Host
A letter is an unannounced visit, the postman the agent of rude surprises. One ought to reserve an hour a week for receiving letters and afterwards take a bath.
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German Philosopher, Scholar, Writer
A letter from the heart can be read on the face.
—African Proverb
There must be millions of people all over the world who never get any love letters… I could be their leader.
—Charles M. Schulz (1922–2000) American Cartoonist, Writer, Artist
If you are in doubt whether to write a letter or not, don’t. And the advice applies to many doubts in life besides that of letter writing.
—Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton (1803–73) British Novelist, Poet, Politician
To send a letter is a good way to go somewhere without moving anything but your heart.
—Phyllis Theroux (b.1939) American Journalist, Author
A woman seldom writes her Mind, but in her Postscript.
—Richard Steele (1672–1729) Irish Writer, Politician
Somebody just back of you while you are fishing is as bad as someone looking over your shoulder while you write a letter to your girl.
—Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American Author, Journalist, Short Story Writer
The post office has a great charm at one point of our lives. When you have lived to my age, you will begin to think letters are never worth going through the rain for.
—Jane Austen (1775–1817) English Novelist
And none will hear the postman’s knock
Without a quickening of the heart.
For who can bear to feel himself forgotten?
—W. H. Auden (1907–73) British-born American Poet, Dramatist
It is by the benefit of letters that absent friends are, in a manner, brought together.
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca) (c.4 BCE–65 CE) Roman Stoic Philosopher, Statesman, Tragedian
More than kisses, letters mingle souls.
—John Donne (1572–1631) English Poet, Cleric
In an age like ours, which is not given to letter-writing, we forget what an important part it used to play in people’s lives.
—Anatole Broyard (1920–90) American Literary Critic
A Letter is a Joy of Earth –
It is denied the Gods.
—Emily Dickinson (1830–86) American Poet
A marriage in later years sends a letter to the grave digger.
—German Proverb
A good face they say, is a letter of recommendation. O Nature, Nature, why art thou so dishonest, as ever to send men with these false recommendations into the World!
—Henry Fielding (1707–54) English Novelist, Dramatist
One of the pleasures of reading old letters is the knowledge that they need no answer.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron) (1788–1824) English Romantic Poet
Let your letter be written as accurately as you are able—I mean as to language, grammar, and stops; but as to the matter of it the less trouble you give yourself the better it will be. Letters should be easy and natural, and convey to the persons to whom we send just what we should say if we were with them.
—Earl of Chesterfield (1694–1773) English Statesman, Man of Letters
His sayings are generally like women’s letters; all the pith is in the postscript.
—William Hazlitt (1778–1830) English Essayist
A prudent man will read the letter from back to front.
—Turkish Proverb
What a wonderful thing is the mail, capable of conveying across continents a warm human hand-clasp.
—Unknown
A letter shows the man it is written to as well as the man it is written by.
—Earl of Chesterfield (1694–1773) English Statesman, Man of Letters
O ay, letters – I had letters – I am persecuted with letters – I hate letters – nobody knows how to write letters; and yet one has ’em, one does not know why – they serve one to pin up one’s hair.
—William Congreve (1670–1729) English Playwright, Poet
Politeness is as much concerned in answering letters within a reasonable time, as it is in returning a bow, immediately.
—Earl of Chesterfield (1694–1773) English Statesman, Man of Letters
Correspondences are like small clothes before the invention of suspenders; it is impossible to keep them up.
—Sydney Smith (1771–1845) English Clergyman, Essayist, Wit
I have received no more than one or two letters in my life that were worth the postage.
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–62) American Philosopher
Personal beauty is a greater recommendation than any letter of reference.
—Aristotle (384BCE–322BCE) Ancient Greek Philosopher, Scholar
Mr Witwould: “Pray, madam, do you pin up your hair with all your letters? I find I must keep copies”.
Mrs Millamant: “Only with those in verse…. I never pin up my hair with prose”.
—William Congreve (1670–1729) English Playwright, Poet