Richard Chenevix Trench Quotes

#1. The sin of pride is the sin of sins; in which all subsequent sins are included, as in their germ; they are but the unfolding of this one.

Richard Chenevix Trench

#2. There is hardly a mistake which in the course of our lives we have committed, but some proverb, had we known and attended to its lesson, might have saved us from it.

Richard Chenevix Trench

#3. Common sense meant once something very different from that plain wisdom, the common heritage of men, which we now call by this name.

Richard Chenevix Trench

#4. We live not in our moments or our years:
The present we fling from us like the rind
Of some sweet future, which we after find
Bitter to taste.

Richard Chenevix Trench

#5. The best is oftentimes the enemy of the good; and many a good book has remained unwritten ... because there floated before the mind's eye the ideal of a better or a best.

Richard Chenevix Trench

#6. The love of our own language, what is it, in fact, but the love of our country expressing itself in one particular direction?

Richard Chenevix Trench

#7. Prayer is not getting man's will done in heaven, but getting God's will done on earth. It is not overcoming God's reluctance but laying hold of God's willingness.

Richard Chenevix Trench

#8. Best friends might loathe us, if what things perverse we know of our own selves they also knew.

Richard Chenevix Trench

#9. Language is the close-fitting dress of thought.

Richard Chenevix Trench

#10. Oh seize the instant time; you never will
With water once passed by impel the mill.

Richard Chenevix Trench

#11. Speak but little and well, if you would be esteemed as a man of merit.

Richard Chenevix Trench

#12. The present is only intelligible in the light of the past.

Richard Chenevix Trench

#13. None but God can satisfy the longings of an immortal soul; that as the heart was made for Him, so He only can fill it.

Richard Chenevix Trench

#14. Grammar is the logic of speech, even as logic is the grammar of reason.

Richard Chenevix Trench

#15. For we must share, if we would keep, that blessing from above; ceasing to give, we cease to have; such is the law of love.

Richard Chenevix Trench

#16. Sin may be clasped so close, we cannot see its face.

Richard Chenevix Trench

#17. Not all who seem to fail have failed indeed,Not all who fail have therefor worked in vain.There is no failure for the good and brave.

Richard Chenevix Trench

#18. As shadows attend substances, so words follow upon things.

Richard Chenevix Trench

#19. All beautiful things bring sadness, nor alone Sweet music, as our wisest Poet spake, Because in us keen longings they awake.

Richard Chenevix Trench

#20. Nothing is true but Love, nor aught of worth; Love is the incense which doth sweeten earth.

Richard Chenevix Trench

#21. A good ship is never tested in calm waters.

Richard Chenevix Trench