PoemFor of all sad words of tongue or pen, The saddest are these: "It might have been!"John Greenleaf WhittierMaud Muller · 1856★ 5.2
LetterWhat a book a Devil's chaplain might write on the clumsy, wasteful, blundering low, & horridly cruel works of nature!Charles Darwin1856★ 3.8
NovelCasting aspersions on those we love always does something to loosen our ties. We shouldn't maltreat our idols; the gilt comes off in our hands.Gustave FlaubertMadame Bovary · 1856★ 3.8
NovelHuman speech is like a cracked kettle on which we tap crude rhythms for bears to dance to, while we long to make music that will melt the stars.Gustave FlaubertMadame Bovary · 1856★ 3.8
NovelEmma was like all his other mistresses; and as the charm of novelty gradually slipped from her like a piece of her clothing, he saw revealed in all its nakedness the eternal monotony of passion, which always assumes the same forms and always speaks the same language.Gustave FlaubertMadame Bovary · 1856★ 3.7
Historical literature · Political literatureIt is not always by going from bad to worse that a society falls into revolution... The social order destroyed by a revolution is almost always better than that which immediately preceded it, and experience shows that the most dangerous moment for a bad government is generally that in which it sets about reform.Alexis de TocquevilleThe Ancien Regime and the Revolution · 1856★ 3.6
Historical literature · Political literatureDespots themselves do not deny that freedom is excellent; only they desire it for themselves alone, and they maintain that everyone else is altogether unworthy of it.Alexis de TocquevilleThe Ancien Regime and the Revolution · 1856★ 3.6
PoemFor say a foolish thing enough… ... The same thing Shall pass at last for absolutely wise, And not with fools exclusively.Elizabeth Barrett Browning1856★ 3.6
To know anything well involves a profound sensation of ignorance.John RuskinModern Painters · 1856★ 3.6
Political literatureYou may talk of the tyranny of Nero and Tiberius; but the real tyranny is the tyranny of your next-door neighbor.... Public opinion is a permeating influence, and it exacts obedience to itself; it requires us to think other men's thoughts, to speak other men's words, to follow other men's habits.Walter Bagehot1856★ 3.5
NovelHe took it for granted that she was content; and she resented his settled calm, his serene dullness, the very happiness she herself brought him.Gustave FlaubertMadame Bovary · 1856★ 2.1
Personal journalThat man is the richest whose pleasures are the cheapest.Henry David Thoreau1856★ 2.1
Historical literature · Political literatureFreedom alone substitutes from time to time for the love of material comfort more powerful and more lofty passions; it alone supplies ambition with greater objectives than the acquisition of riches, and creates the light that makes it possible to see and to judge the vices and virtues of mankind.Alexis de TocquevilleThe Ancien Regime and the Revolution · 1856★ 1.9
Historical literature · Political literatureThe French Revolution operated in reference to this world in exactly the same manner as religious revolutions acted in view of the other world. It considered the citizen as an abstract proposition apart from any particular society, in the same way as religions considered man as man, independent of country and time.Alexis de TocquevilleThe Ancien Regime and the Revolution · 1856★ 1.9
SpeechBetter to abolish serfdom from above than to wait till it begins to abolish itself from below.Czar Alexander II of Russia1856★ 1.9
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