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21 " Too late we know the good from bad; the knowledge is no pleasure then; being memory's medicine rather than the wine of hope "
― R.D. Blackmore , Lorna Doone
22 " Hope of course is nothing more than desire with a telescope, magnifying distant matters, overlooking near ones; opening one eye on the objects, closing the other to all objections. And if hope be the future tense of desire, the future of fear is religion—at least with too many of us. "
23 " Now this may seem very strange to us who live in a better and purer age—or say at least that we do so—and yet who are we to condemn our fathers for teaching us better manners, and at their own expense? "
24 " All the beauty of the spring went for happy men to think of all the increase of the year was for other eyes to mark. Not a sign of any sunrise for me from my fount of life; not a breath to stir the dead leaves fallen on my heart’s Spring. "
25 " Although a man may be as simple as the flowers of the field; knowing when, but scarcely why, he closes to the bitter wind; and feeling why, but scarcely when, he opens to the genial sun; yet without his questing much into the capsule of himself—to do which is a misery—he may have a general notion how he happens to be getting on. "
26 " I delay so long, because I fear; because my whole life hangs in balance on a single word; because what I have near me now may never be more near me after, though more than all the world, or than a thousand worlds, to me. "