There is no dealing with great sorrow as if it were under the control of our wills. It is a terrible phenomenon, whose laws we must study, and to whose conditions we must submit, if we would mitigate it.
—Sheridan Le Fanu
There comes with old age a time when the heart is no longer fusible or malleable, and must retain the form in which it has cooled down.
—Sheridan Le Fanu
How marvellously lie our anxieties, in filmy layers, one over the other! Take away that which has lain on the upper surface for so long — the care of cares — the only one, as it seemed to you, between your soul and the radiance of Heaven — and straight you find a new stratum there.
—Sheridan Le Fanu
Old persons are sometimes as unwilling to die as tired-out children are to say good night and go to bed.
—Sheridan Le Fanu
Topics: Death
The world, he resumed after a short pause, “has no faith in any man’s conversion; it never forgets what he was, it never believes him anything better, it is an inexorable and stupid judge.”
—Sheridan Le Fanu
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
Elizabeth Bowen Irish Novelist
Oscar Wilde Irish Poet, Playwright
James Joyce Irish Novelist
Jonathan Swift Irish Satirist
Laurence Sterne Irish Anglican Novelist
Brendan Behan Irish Poet
Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of Blessington Irish Novelist
Joyce Cary English Novelist
Samuel Lover Irish Writer, Artist, Songwriter
Edmund Burke British Philosopher, Statesman