Christian Nestell Bovee Quotes - Page 5

The small courtesies sweeten life; the greater ennoble it.

A profusion of fancies and quotations is out of place in a love-letter. True feeling is always direct, and never deviates into by-ways to cull flowers of rhetoric.

Partial culture runs to the ornate, extreme culture to simplicity.

It is with charity as with money--the more we stand in need of it, the less we have to give away.

Within the sacred walls of libraries we find the best thoughts, the purest feelings, and the most exalted imaginings of our race.

Fame - a few words upon a tombstone, and the truth of those not to be depended on.

An eager pursuit of fortune is inconsistent with a severe devotion to truth. The heart must grow tranquil before the thought can become searching.

Troubles forereckoned are doubly suffered.

Wit never appears to greater advantage than when it is successfully exerted to relieve from a dilemma, palliate a deficiency, or cover a retreat.

There is something in the character of every man which cannot be broken in--the skeleton of his character; and to try to alter this is like training a sheep for draught purposes. GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG, The Reflections of Lichtenberg We become familiar with the outsides of men, as with the outsides of houses, and think we know them, while we are ignorant of so much that is passing within them.

Enthusiasm is the inspiration of everything great.

Like the withered roses of a once gay garland, the feelings of youth command in age a melancholy interest.

There will always be romance in the world so long as there are young hearts in it.

Men, like musical instruments, seem made to be played upon.

The grandest of all laws is the law of progressive development. Under it, in the wide sweep of things, men grow wiser as they grow older, and societies better.

The greatest happiness comes from the greatest activity.

Courage enlarges, cowardice diminishes resources.

Dignity of position adds to dignity of character, as well as to dignity of carriage. Give us a proud position, and we are impelled to act up to it.

The knowledge beyond all other knowledge is the knowledge how to excuse.

It is our relation to circumstances that determines their influence upon us.

There are some kinds of men who cannot pass their time alone; they are the flails of occupied people.(Bonald, M.} There are few wild beasts more to be dreaded than a communicative man having nothing to communicate.

Kindred weaknesses induce friendships as often as kindred virtues.

Nothing is so fragile as thought in its infancy; an interruption breaks it: nothing is so powerful, even to overturning empires, when it reaches its maturity.

Great warriors, like great earthquakes, are principally remembered for the mischief they have done.

To be without sympathy is to be alone in the world--without friends or country, home or kindred.