Charles Robert Maturin Quotes

Beauty hath no lustre save when it gleameth through the crystal web that purity’s fine fingers weave for it.

The fountain of my heart dried up within me,–With nought that loved me, and with nought to love,I stood upon the desert earth alone.And in that deep and utter agony,Though then, then even most unfit to dieI fell upon my knees and prayed for death.

A time will come, and soon, when, from mere habit, you will echo the scream of every delirious wretch that harbors near you; then you will pause, clasp your hands on your throbbing head, and listen with horrible anxiety whether the scream proceeded from you or them.

Tis well to be merry and wise,’Tis well to be honest and true;It is best to be off with the old love,Before you are on with the new.

A malady Preys on my heart that med’cine cannot reach.

It is actually possible to become amateurs in suffering.

The soul shares not the body’s test.

The limner’s art may trace the absent feature,And give the eye of distant weeping faithTo view the form of its idolatry;But oh! the scenes ‘mid which they met and parted;The thoughts–the recollections sweet and bitter,–Th’ Elysian dreams of lovers, when they loved,–Who shall restore them?

My own lov’d light,That very soft and solemn spirit worships,That lovers love so well–strange joy is thine,Whose influence o’er all tides of soul hath power,Who lend’st thy light to rapture and despair;The glow of hope and wan hue of sick fancyAlike reflect thy rays: alike thou lightestThe path of meeting or of parting love–Alike on mingling or on breaking heartsThou smil’st in throned beauty!

Yes, I laugh at all mankind, and the imposition that they dare to practice when they talk of hearts. I laugh at human passions and human cares, vice and virtue, religion and impiety; they are all the result of petty localities, and artificial situation. One physical want, one severe and abrupt lesson from the colorless and shriveled lip of necessity, is worth all the logic of the empty wretches who have presumed to prate it, from Zeno down to Burgersdicius. It silences in a second all the feeble sophistry of conventional life, and ascetical passion.

They waste life in what are called good resolutions-partial efforts at reformation, feebly commenced, heartlessly conducted, and hopelessly concluded.

Nor cell, nor chain, nor dungeon speaks to the murderer like the voice of solitude.