There is no instinct like that of the heart.
I am sure of nothing so little as my own intentions.
There is pleasure in the pathless woods, there is rapture in the lonely shore, there is society where none intrudes, by the deep sea, and music in its roar; I love not Man the less, but Nature more.
For in itself a thought, a slumbering thought, is capable of years, and curdles a long life into one hour.
A mistress never is nor can be a friend. While you agree, you are lovers; and when it is over, anything but friends.
Lovers may be - and indeed generally are - enemies, but they never can be friends, because there must always be a spice of jealousy and a something of Self in all their speculations.
Like the measles, love is most dangerous when it comes late in life.
What should I have known or written had I been a quiet, mercantile politician or a lord in waiting? A man must travel, and turmoil, or there is no existence.
America is a model of force and freedom and moderation - with all the coarseness and rudeness of its people.
Though sages may pour out their wisdom's treasure, there is no sterner moralist than pleasure.
The fact is that my wife if she had common sense would have more power over me than any other whatsoever, for my heart always alights upon the nearest perch.
To withdraw myself from myself has ever been my sole, my entire, my sincere motive in scribbling at all.
We are all selfish and I no more trust myself than others with a good motive.
The heart will break, but broken live on.
There are four questions of value in life, Don Octavio. What is sacred? Of what is the spirit made? What is worth living for and what is worth dying for? The answer to each is the same. Only love.
There is something pagan in me that I cannot shake off. In short, I deny nothing, but doubt everything.
As long as I retain my feeling and my passion for Nature, I can partly soften or subdue my other passions and resist or endure those of others.
Love will find a way through paths where wolves fear to prey.
It is very certain that the desire of life prolongs it.
The best prophet of the future is the past.