Christian Nestell Bovee Quotes - Page 4

To vindicate the sanctity of human life by taking it is an outrage upon reason. The spectacle of a human being dangling at the end of a gallows-rope is a degradation of humanity.

Next to being witty, the best thing is being able to quote another's wit.

Even when we fancy we have grown wiser, it is only, it may be, that new prejudices have displaced old ones.

There is a German proverb which says that Take-it-Easy and Live-Long are brothers.

The body of a sensualist is the coffin of a dead soul.

Books are embalmed minds.

Patience is only one faculty; earnestness the devotion of all the faculties. Earnestness is the cause of patience; it gives endurance, overcomes pain, strengthens weakness, braves dangers, sustains hope, makes light of difficulties, and lessens the sense of weariness in overcoming them.

Some one called Sir Richard Steele the "vilest of mankind," and he retorted with proud humility, "It would be a glorious world if I were.

If it is a distinction to have written a good book, it is also a disgrace to have written a bad one.

The trouble with men of sense is that they are so dreadfully in earnest all the while.

Love makes a few weeks so rich that all the rest of our lives seems poor in comparison.

Sorrow is never more sorrowful than when it jests at its own misery.

Logic invents as many fallacies as it detects; it is a good weapon, but as liable to be used in a bad as in a good cause.

New situations inspire new thoughts. Here is the benefit of travelling, much more than in mere sight-seeing. We lose ourselves in the streets of our own city, and go abroad to find ourselves.

It is of very little use in trying to be dignified, if dignity is no part of your character.

Age, that acquaints us with infirmities in ourselves, should make us tender in our reprehension of weakness elsewhere.

The cause of laziness is physiological; it is an infirmity of the constitution, and its victim is as much to be pitied as a sufferer from any other constitutional infirmity. It is even worse than many other diseases; from them the patient may recover, while this is incurable.

Silence, when nothing need be said, is the eloquence of discretion.

Dishonest people conceal their faults from themselves as well as others, honest people know and confess them.

Marriage, by making us more contented, causes us often to be less enterprising.

The reveries of the dreamer advance his hopes, but not their realization. One good hour of earnest work is worth them all.

He must put his whole life into his work, who would do it well, and make it potential to influence other lives.

Talk less about the years to come, Live, love labor more today.

It is indeed a misfortune for a woman to be without beauty, as with men the eye is the chief arbiter of qualities in the sex. Her beauty is her capital--her worth in the market matrimonial depends upon it. With her the Virtues are less reverenced when unaccompanied by the Graces. The sex understand this very well; and hence they seek mainly to make captive the eye, knowing the mind and heart will follow as a matter of course.

The lively and mercurial are as open books, with the leaves turned down at the notable passages. Their souls sit at the windows of their eyes, seeing and to be seen.