“The tragedy of old age is not that one is old, but that one is young.”

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.”

— Charles Dickens《A Tale of Two Cities》

“Till this moment, I never knew myself.”

— Jane Austen《Pride and Prejudice》

“Think only of the past as its remembrance gives you pleasure.”

— Jane Austen《Pride and Prejudice》

“So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”

— F. Scott Fitzgerald《The Great Gatsby》

“The sons and daughters of the Love-Star instantly ceased their own soft musical conversation, and Zaidie sang the old plantation song through for the first time that a human voice had sung it to ears other than human.”

— George Griffith《A Honeymoon in Space》

“His mind relieved from inquietude respecting his Sister, and his Spirits raised by the hope of soon restoring her to freedom, He now had time to give a few moments to love and to Antonia.”

— Matthew Gregory Lewis《The Monk》

“Your mother thought that as you and I, in a short time, have become, so to say, friends, and you have some confidence in me, I am in a position to give you good advice—and you would mind what I say.”

— Ivan Turgenev《The Torrents of Spring》

“DEAR DICK, At what time of life may a man think himself exempted from the necessity of sacrificing his repose to the punctilios of a contemptible world?”

— Tobias Smollett《The Expedition of Humphry Clinker》

“The time is out of joint. O cursed spite, that ever I was born to set it right.”

— William Shakespeare《Hamlet》

“She had been deeply impressed with the idea of French spies at some time in her life; and the notion could never be fairly eradicated, but sprang up again from time to time.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell《Cranford》

“Several times, the thought had come to me, that the Things had, at last, left us; but, up to this time, I had refused to entertain the idea, seriously; now, however, I began to feel that there was reason for hope.”

— William Hope Hodgson《The House on the Borderland》

“It is now becoming obscured by time; and thousands, who know that Montcalm died like a hero on the plains of Abraham, have yet to learn how much he was deficient in that moral courage without which no man can be truly great.”

— James Fenimore Cooper《The Last of the Mohicans》