George William Curtis Quotes - Page 2

The world is not made for the prosperous alone, nor for the strong.

In the journey of the year, the autumn is Venice, spring is Naples, certainly, and the majestic maturity of summer is Rome.

Anger is an expensive luxury in which only men of certain income can indulge.

I think that to have known one good, old man-one man, who, through the chances and mischances of a long life, has carried his heart in his hand, like a palm-branch, waving all discords into peace-helps our faith in God, in ourselves, and in each other more than many sermons

True invective requires great imagination.

Criticism is not construction, it is observation.

The Pride of ancestry increases in the ratio of distance.

Good taste consists first upon fitness.

Our common liberty is consecrated by a common sorrow.

Books of entertainment first led Adam Clarke to believe in a spiritual world.

For nature makes women to be won, and men to win.

It is not observed in history that families improve with time.

A tree which has lost its head will never recover it again, and will survive only as a monument of the ignorance and folly of its Tormentor.

Through all history, from the beginning, a noble army of martyrs have fought fiercely and fallen bravely for that unseen mistress, their country. So, through all history, to the end, as long as men believe in God that army must still march and fall, recruited only from the flower of mankind, cheered only by their own hope of humanity, strong only in the confidence of their cause.

Patriotism is the vital condition of national permanence.

Virtue does not truly reward her votary if she leaves him sad and half doubtful whether it would not have been better to serve vice.

Anger, even when it punishes the faults of delinquents, ought not to precede reason as its mistress, but attend as a handmaid at the back of reason, to come to the front when bidden. For once it begins to take control of the mind, it calls just what it does cruelly.

Heroes in history seem to us poetic because they are there. But if we should tell the simple truth of some of our neighbors, it would sound like poetry.

Reputation is favorable notoriety as distinguished from fame, which is permanent approval of great deeds and noble thoughts by the best intelligence of mankind.

Imagination is as good as many voyages - and how much cheaper.

There is very little moral mixture in the 'Antislavery' feeling of this country. A great deal is abstract philanthropy; part is hatred of slaveholders; a great part is jealousy for white labor, very little is consciousness of wrong done and the wish to right it.

It is the most human and kindly of seasons, as fully penetrated and irradiated with the feeling of human brotherhood, which is the essential spirit of Christianity, as the month of June with sunshine and the balmy breath of roses.

Our great social and political advantage is opportunity.