Alexander Smith Quotes

Love is but the discovery of ourselves in others, and the delight in the recognition.

Christmas is the day that holds all time together.

In the entire circle of the year there are no days so delightful as those of a fine October, when the trees are bare to the mild heavens, and the red leaves bestrew the road, and you can feel the breath of winter, morning and evening - no days so calm, so tenderly solemn, and with such a reverent meekness in the air.

A man's real possession is his memory. In nothing else is he rich, in nothing else is he poor.

A man does not plant a tree for himself; he plants it for posterity.

I go into my library and all history unrolls before me.

There is a slow-growing beauty which only comes to perfection in old age.... I have seen sweeter smiles on a lip of seventy than I ever saw on a lip of seventeen. There is the beauty of youth, and there is also the beauty of holiness—a beauty much more seldom met; and more frequently found in the arm-chair by the fire, with grandchildren around its knee, than in the ball-room or the promenade.

If we were to live here always, with no other care than how to feed, clothe, and house ourselves, life would be a very sorry business. It is immeasurably heightened by the solemnity of death.

We are never happy; we can only remember that we were so once.

If you wish to preserve your secret, wrap it up in frankness.

It is a characteristic of pleasure that we can never recognize it to be pleasure till after it is gone.

A thought may be very commendable as a thought, but I value it chiefly as a window through which I can obtain insight on the thinker.

The saddest thing that befalls a soul is when it loses faith in god and woman.

In my garden I spend my days, in my library I spend my nights. My interests are divided between my geraniums and my books. With the flower I am in the present; with the book I am in the past.

Trees are your best antiques

If a man is worth knowing at all, he is worth knowing well.

It is not of so much consequence what you say, as how you say it. Memorable sentences are memorable on account of some single irradiating word.

How beautiful the yesterday that stood Over me like a rainbow! I am alone, The past is past. I see the future stretch All dark and barren as a rainy sea.

The sea complains upon a thousand shores.

Every day travels toward death; the last only arrives at it.

Looking forward into an empty year strikes one with a certain awe, because one finds therein no recognition. The years behind have a friendly aspect, and they are warmed by the fires we have kindled, and all their echoes are the echoes of our own voices.

How deeply seated in the human heart is the liking for gardens and gardening.

In the entire circle of the year there are no days so delightful as those of a fine October.

Everything is sweetened by risk.

Fine phrases I value more than bank-notes. I have ear for no other harmony than the harmony of words. To be occasionally quoted is the only fame I care for.