“Deceit is this world's passport: who would dare, / However pure the breast, to lay it bare?”

— Letitia Elizabeth Landon, The Venetian Bracelet, 1829, title poem

About Letitia Elizabeth Landon

1802 – 1838

English poet and novelist, who wrote as "L.E.L."

“No thoroughly occupied man was ever yet very miserable.”

“Methinks adieu / Is cold, when uttered with aught else but tears.”

“Yes ; look thro' the world, and this truth you will find / That, once out of sight, you are soon out of mind.”

“The better part of valour is discretion; in the which better part I have saved my life.”

“It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world, and moral courage so rare.”

“Dictators ride to and fro on tigers from which they dare not dismount. And the tigers are getting hungry.”

“Sure I am of this, that you have only to endure to conquer.”

“The superior man, when resting in safety, does not forget that danger may come.”

“There is always a philosophy for lack of courage.”