It is books that teach us to refine our pleasures when young, and to recall them with satisfaction when we are old.
—Leigh Hunt
Topics: Satisfaction, Books, Reading
He crossed words of which he knew nothing; and perhaps we all do as much every moment, over things of divinest meaning.
—Leigh Hunt
The person who can be only serious or only cheerful, is but half a man.
—Leigh Hunt
Topics: People
Those who have lost an infant are never, in a way, without an infant.
—Leigh Hunt
Topics: Children
Night’s deepest gloom is but a calm; that soothes the weary mind: The labored days restoring balm; the comfort of mankind.
—Leigh Hunt
Topics: Night
Stolen kisses are always sweetest.
—Leigh Hunt
Topics: Kisses, Kiss
Whatever evil befalls us, we ought to ask ourselves … how we can turn it into good. So shall we take occasion, from one bitter root, to raise perhaps many flowers.
—Leigh Hunt
Colors are the smiles of nature.
—Leigh Hunt
Topics: Nature
Some tears belong to us because we are unfortunate: others because we are humane: many because we are mortal.—But most are caused by our being unwise.—It is these last, only, that of necessity produce more.
—Leigh Hunt
Topics: Tears
The more we know of any one ground of knowledge, the further we see into the general domains of intellect.
—Leigh Hunt
Occupation is the necessary basis of all enjoyment.
—Leigh Hunt
Topics: Busy, Occupation
The same people who can deny others everything are famous for refusing themselves nothing.
—Leigh Hunt
Topics: Sacrifice
Great woman belong to history and to self sacrifice.
—Leigh Hunt
Topics: Greatness, Greatness & Great Things
The groundwork of all happiness is health.
—Leigh Hunt
Topics: Health
If you ever have to support a flagging conversation, introduce the topic of eating.
—Leigh Hunt
Topics: Conversation
The man who can be nothing but serious, or nothing but merry, is but half a man.
—Leigh Hunt
It is a delicious moment, certainly, that of being well nestled in bed and feeling that you shall drop gently to sleep. The good is to come, not past; the limbs are tired enough to render the remaining in one posture delightful; the labor of the day is gone. A gentle failure of the perceptions creeps over you; the spirit of consciousness disengages itself once more, and with slow and hushing degrees, like a mother detaching her hand from that of a sleeping child, the mind seems to have a balmy lid closing over it, like the eye—it is closed—the mysterious spirit has gone to take its airy rounds.
—Leigh Hunt
Topics: Relaxation, Sleep
Sympathizing and selfish people are alike, both given to tears.
—Leigh Hunt
Topics: Sympathy
Leaves seem light, useless, idle, wavering, and changeable—they even dance; yet God has made them part of the oak.—So he has given us a lesson, not to deny stout-heartedness within, because we see lightsomeness without.
—Leigh Hunt
Affection, like melancholy, magnifies trifles; but the magnifying of the one is like looking through a telescope at heavenly objects; that of the other, like enlarging monsters with a microscope.
—Leigh Hunt
Topics: Love, Affection
Improvement is nature.
—Leigh Hunt
Topics: Improvement
They who have lost an infant are never, as it were, without an infant child. Their other children grow up to manhood and womanhood, and suffer all the changes of mortality; but this one is rendered an immortal child, for death has arrested it with his kindly harshness, and blessed it into an eternal image of youth and innocence.
—Leigh Hunt
When moral courage feels that it is in the right, there is no personal daring of which it is incapable.
—Leigh Hunt
Topics: Morals
There are two worlds; the world that we can measure with line and rule, and the world that we feel with our hearts and imagination.
—Leigh Hunt
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
- Matthew Arnold English Poet, Critic
- Edward Lear English Humorist, Illustrator
- Thomas Hood British Poet, Humorist
- A. E. Housman English Scholar, Poet
- Dante Gabriel Rossetti British Poet, Artist
- Christopher Hitchens Anglo-American Social Critic
- John Keats English Poet
- Anthony Burgess English Novelist, Critic
- Gerard Manley Hopkins English Poet
- Robert Bridges English Poet
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