But for my sighs, I should be drowned by my tears; and but for my tears, I should be burned by my sighs.

You could seldom get people to long for what was possible-that was the cruelty of it.

Besides the pleasure derived from acquired knowledge, there lurks in the mind of man, and tinged with a shade of sadness, an unsatisfactory longing for something beyond the present, a striving towards regions yet unknown and unopened.

What hidden, hoarded longings there are in all of us.

It seems to me we can never give up longing and wishing while we are thoroughly alive. There are certain things we feel to be beautiful and good, and we must hunger after them.