Background Image

...

Perhaps The Heroic Element In Our Natures Is Exhibited To The Best Advantage, Not In Going From Success To Success, And So On Through A Series Of Triumphs, But In Gathering, On The Very Field Of Defeat Itself, The Materials For Renewed Efforts, And In Proceeding, With No Abatement Of Heart Or Energy, To Form Fresh Designs Upon The Very Ruins And Ashes Of Blasted Hopes. Yes, It Is This Indomitable Persistence In A Purpose, Continued Alike Through Defeat And Success, That Makes, More Than Aught Else, The Hero.

-Christian Nestell Bovee

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

Perhaps The Heroic Element

Christian Nestell Bovee

...

Perhaps The Heroic Element In Our Natures Is Exhibited To The Best Advantage, Not In Going From Success To Success, And So On Through A Series Of Triumphs, But In Gathering, On The Very Field Of Defeat Itself, The Materials For Renewed Efforts, And In Proceeding, With No Abatement Of Heart Or Energy, To Form Fresh Designs Upon The Very Ruins And Ashes Of Blasted Hopes. Yes, It Is This Indomitable Persistence In A Purpose, Continued Alike Through Defeat And Success, That Makes, More Than Aught Else, The Hero.

Views: 5

Topic

More From Christian Nestell Bovee

Ideas Are Like Matter, Infinitely Divisible. It Is Not Given To Us To Get Down So To Speak To Their Final Atoms, But To Their Molecular Groupings-the Way Is Never Ending And The Progress Infinitely Delightful And Profitable.

He Presents Me With What Is Always An Acceptable Gift Who Brings Me News Of A Great Thought Before Unknown. He Enriches Me Without Impoverishing Himself. The Judicious Quoter, Too, Helps On What Is Much Needed In The World, A Freer Circulation Of Good Thoughts, Pure Feelings, And Pleasant Fancies.

A Better Principle Than This, That "the Majority Shall Rule," Is This Other, That Justice Shall Rule. "justice," Says The Code Of Justinian, "is The Constant And Perpetual Desire To Render Every Man His Due.

Most Books Fail, Not So Much From A Want Of Ability In Their Authors, As From An Absence In Their Productions Of A Thorough Development Of Their Ability.

Men Were Created For Something Better Than Merely To Make Money. A Close Application To Business, Until A Competence Is Gained, Is One Of The Chief Virtues; But To Continue In Trade Long After This Result Is Obtained, Is One Of The Signs, Not To Be Mistaken, Of A Sordid And Ignoble Nature.

Beauty Can Afford To Laugh At Distinctions: It Is Itself The Greatest Distinction.

I Desire To Go Through Life Knowing As Little Of Evil In It As Possible. To This End, I Sometimes Avoid Looking Too Closely Into The Nature Of Things, Studying Them Only So Far As They Seem To Be Good, And Abandoning Interest In Them As Soon As Their Darker Feature Begin To Appear. The Good Only Deserves A Hearty Interest.

In Politics, Merit Is Rewarded By The Possessor Being Raised, Like A Target, To A Position To Be Fired At.

Rejecting The Miracles Of Christ, We Still Have The Miracle Of Christ Himself.

The Selection Of A Subject Is To The Author What Choice Of Position Is To The General,--once Skilfully Determined, The Battle Is Already Half Won. Of A Few Writers It May Be Said That They Are Popular In Despite Of Their Subjects--but Of A Great Many More It May Be Observed That They Are Popular Because Of Them.

Books Are Embalmed Minds.

Age, That Acquaints Us With Infirmities In Ourselves, Should Make Us Tender In Our Reprehension Of Weakness Elsewhere.

Wit, Like Poetry, Is Insusceptible Of Being Constructed Upon Rules Founded Merely In Reason. Like Faith, It Exists Independent Of Reason, And Sometimes In Hostility To It.

When We Have The Means To Pay For What We Desire, What We Get Is Not So Much What Is Best, As What Is Costliest.

Life Is Indeed Either A Rich Possession Or A Poor, According As It Is Made Subservient To Noble Aims Or Ignoble Pleasures.

What Is Taken From The Fortune, Also, May Haply Be So Much Lifted From The Soul. The Greatness Of A Loss, As The Proverb Suggests, Is Determinable, Not So Much By What We Have Lost, As By What We Have Left.

Difficulties, By Bracing The Mind To Overcome Them, Assist Cheerfulness, As Exercise Assists Digestion.

Four Sweet Lips, Two Pure Souls, And One Undying Affection, - These Are Love's Pretty Ingredients For A Kiss.

An Eager Pursuit Of Fortune Is Inconsistent With A Severe Devotion To Truth. The Heart Must Grow Tranquil Before The Thought Can Become Searching.

In One Important Respect A Man Is Fortunate In Being Poor. His Responsibility To God Is So Much The Less

Luminous Quotations, Also, Atone, By Their Interest, For The Dulness Of An Inferior Book, And Add To The Value Of A Superior Work By The Variety Which They Lend To Its Style And Treatment.

Next To Being Witty, The Best Thing Is Being Able To Quote Another's Wit.

God Has Created Too Few Unmixed Evils To Warrant The Belief That Death Is One Of Them. In All Things Else In Nature, Goodness So Abounds That We Are Authorized To Infer That It Does Not Stop Even At The Grave. It Is Only That Her Footprints Have Become Invisible.

The Past Is The Sepulchre Of Our Dead Emotions.

It Is The Nature Of Thought To Find Its Way Into Action.

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.

A Mother's Love Is Indeed The Golden Link That Binds Youth To Age; And He Is Still But A Child, However Time May Have Furrowed His Cheek, Or Silvered His Brow, Who Can Yet Recall, With A Softened Heart, The Fond Devotion, Or The Gentle Chidings, Of The Best Friend That God Gives Us.

Our Courage Is Greater To Dare A Visible Than An Imagined Danger. A Visible Danger Rouses Our Energies To Meet Or Avert It; A Fancied Peril Appalls From Its Presenting Nothing To Be Resisted. Thus, A Panic Is, Usually, A Sudden Going Over To The Enemy Of Our Imagination. All Is Then Lost, For We Have Not Only To Fight Against That Enemy, But Our Imagination As Well.

No Work Deserves To Be Criticized That Has Not Much In It That Deserves To Be Applauded.

To Cultivate A Garden Is. . . To Go Hand In Hand With Nature In Some Of Her Most Beautiful Processes, To Learn Something Of Her Choicest Secrets, And To Have A More Intelligent Interest Awakened In The Beautiful Order Of Her Works Elsewhere.

To Cultivate A Garden Is. . . To Go Hand In Hand With Nature In Some Of Her Most Beautiful Processes.

There Will Always Be Romance In The World So Long As There Are Young Hearts In It.

The Light In The World Comes Principally From Two Sources,-the Sun, And The Student's Lamp.

If It Is A Distinction To Have Written A Good Book, It Is Also A Disgrace To Have Written A Bad One.

When We Get Tired Of Enjoying All The Pleasures Within Our Reach, We Have Still A Resource In Thinking Of Others That Are Not.

The Legitimate Aim Of Criticism Is To Direct Attention To The Excellent. The Bad Will Dig Its Own Grave.

A Particular Disappointment Is Seldom More Than An Excrescence Upon The Trunk Of A General Good--a Shower That Spoils The Pleasure Party, But Refreshes And Enriches The Earth.

Marriage, By Making Us More Contented, Causes Us Often To Be Less Enterprising.

Tis But A Short Journey Across The Isthmus Of Now.

Out Of Politics Comes More Uproar Than Progress. It Is Indeed Surprising How Little, Comparatively, This Noisy Department Of Human Affairs Contributes To The World's Prosperity. Political Commotions Upon The Grandest Scale, Political Events Of Astounding Suddenness, Political Characters Of The Greatest Ability, Abound, But Still, Permanent Results Are Rare, And We Look In Vain For A Measure Of Public Good Corresponding In Extent To The Hideous Rout Which Ushers It In. Progress But Turns Upon Its Pillow, And Goes To Sleep Again.

A Man Cannot Paint Portraits Till He Has Seen Faces.

It Is Easier To Die Bravely Than To Live So.

How Like A Railway Tunnel Is The Poor Man's Life, With The Light Of Childhood At One End, The Intermediate Gloom, And Only The Glimmer Of A Future Life At The Other Extremity!

Whether One Talks Well Depends Very Much Upon Whom He Has To Talk To.

There Is Probably No Hell For Authors In The Next World - They Suffer So Much From Critics And Publishers In This.

The Scope Of An Intellect Is Not To Be Measured With A Tape-string, Or A Character Deciphered From The Shape Or Length Of A Nose.

If One Is Not Virtuous He Becomes Vicious.

The Natural Wants Are Few, And Easily Gratified: It Is Only Those Which Are Artificial That Perplex Us By Their Multiplicity.

Very Handsome Women Have Usually Far Less Sensibility To Compliments Than Their Less Beautiful Sisters.

A Genuine Passion Is Like A Mountain Stream; It Admits Of No Impediment; It Cannot Go Backward; It Must Go Forward.

Mortal Beauty Stings While It Delights.

In The Assurance Of Strength There Is Strength; And They Are The Weakest, However Strong, Who Have No Faith In Themselves Or Their Powers.

All Power Is Indeed Weak Compared With That Of The Thinker. He Sits Upon The Throne Of His Empire Of Thought, Mightier Far Than They Who Wield Material Sceptres.

There Is Great Beauty In Going Through Life Without Anxiety Or Fear. Half Our Fears Are Baseless, And The Other Half Discreditable.

In A Contest With A Weaker Party It Is More Honorable To Yield Than To Force Concession. Magnanimity Becomes The Strong.

He That Shrinks From The Grave With Too Great A Dread, Has An Invisible Fear Behind Him Pushing Him Into It.

We Give Our Best Affections To The Beautiful, Only Our Second Best To The Useful.

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.

Alas, The Transports Beauty Can Inspire!

Hard Workers Are Usually Honest; Industry Lifts Them Above Temptation.

The Reveries Of The Dreamer Advance His Hopes, But Not Their Realization. One Good Hour Of Earnest Work Is Worth Them All.

Honesty Is Not Only "the First Step Toward Greatness," - It Is Greatness Itself.

Pure Motives Do Not Insure Perfect Results.

Better Freedom With A Crust, Than Slavery With Every Luxury.

Justice, Not The Majority, Should Rule.

God, We Are Told, Looked Upon The World After He Had Created It And Pronounced It Good; But Ascetic Pietists, In Their Wisdom, Cast Their Eyes Over It, And Substantially Pronounce It A Dead Failure, A Miserable Production, A Poor Concern.

None But Those Who Have Loved Can Be Supposed To Understand The Oratory Of The Eye, The Mute Eloquence Of A Look, Or The Conversational Powers Of The Face. Love's Sweetest Meanings Are Unspoken; The Full Heart Knows No Rhetoric Of Words, And Resorts To The Pantomime Of Sighs And Glances.

Intellectually, As Politically, The Direction Of All True Progress Is Towards Greater Freedom, And Along An Endless Succession Of Ideas.

It Is Our Relation To Circumstances That Determines Their Influence Upon Us.

Every Trait Of Beauty May Be Referred To Some Virtue, As To Innocence, Candor, Generosity, Modesty, Or Heroism. St. Pierre To Cultivate The Sense Of The Beautiful, Is One Of The Most Effectual Ways Of Cultivating An Appreciation Of The Divine Goodness.

Pride Is Like The Beautiful Acacia, That Lifts Its Head Proudly Above Its Neighbor Plants-forgetting That It Too, Like Them, Has Its Roots In The Dirt.

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.

It Is Only An Error Of Judgment To Make A Mistake, But It Argues An Infirmity Of Character To Adhere To It When Discovered.

Truth Comes To Us From The Past, As Gold Is Washed Down From The Mountains Of Sierra Nevada, In Minute But Precious Particles, And Intermixed With Infinite Alloy, The Debris Of The Centuries.

As Threshing Separates The Wheat From The Chaff, So Does Affliction Purify Virtue.

Excessive Sensibility Is Only Another Name For Morbid Self-consciousness.

Winter Is The Night Of Vegetation.

Sorrow Is Never More Sorrowful Than When It Jests At Its Own Misery.

Examples Are Few Of Men Ruined By Giving.

Tranquil Pleasures Last The Longest; We Are Not Fitted To Bear The Burden Of Great Joys.

Without Death In The World, Existence In It Would Soon Become, Through Over-population, The Most Frightful Of Curses.

Words, Like Cannon Balls, Should Go Direct To Their Mark.

The Breath Becomes A Stone; The Stone, A Plant; The Plant, An Animal; The Animal, A Man; The Man, A Spirit; And The Spirit, A God.

Tearless Grief Bleeds Inwardly.

Losing A Loved One

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.

We Should Round Every Day Of Stirring Action With An Evening Of Thought. We Learn Nothing Of Our Experience Except We Muse Upon It.

The Greatest Events Of An Age Are Its Best Thoughts. Thought Finds Its Way Into Action.

An Illusion Dissipated Is An Experience Gained.

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.

Weakness Ineffectually Seeks To Disguise Itself,--like A Drunken Man Trying To Show How Sober He Is.

The Loss Of A Beloved Connection Awakens An Interest In Heaven Before Unfelt.

In Ambition, As In Love, The Successful Can Afford To Be Indulgent Toward Their Rivals. The Prize Our Own, It Is Graceful To Recognize The Merit That Vainly Aspired To It.

We Absolve A Friend From Gratitude When We Remind Him Of A Favor.

Truth, Like The Sun, Submits To Be Obscured; But, Like The Sun, Only For A Time.

What A Position Of Transcendent Horror Must That Be, Where The Perpetrator Of A Great Crime, Till Then A Stranger To Positive Guilt, Finds Himself Suddenly Cut Off, And Forever, From All Human Sympathy, Isolated From Hope, The Tenant Of A Solitary Cell, And With A Wide, Impassable Gulf Yawning Between Him And That Great Brotherhood Of Which He Has Ceased To Be A Part--no Longer Regarded As A Man, But As A Monster In The Shape Of One, From Whom Mercy Herself Turns Away, And For Whom Pity Even Has No Tears!

When All Else Is Lost, The Future Still Remains.

We Trifle When We Assign Limits To Our Desires, Since Nature Hath Set None.

The Less The Difference, The Greater The Quarrel Over It.

Partial Culture Runs To The Ornate, Extreme Culture To Simplicity.

The Next Best Thing To Being Witty One's Self, Is To Be Able To Be Able To Quote Another's Wit.

The Life Even Of A Just Man Is A Round Of Petty Frauds; That Of A Knave A Series Of Greater. We Degrade Life By Our Follies And Vices, And Then Complain That The Unhappiness Which Is Only Their Accompaniment Is Inherent In The Constitution Of Things.

Men, Like Musical Instruments, Seem Made To Be Played Upon.

Complaint Is. More Contemptible Than Pitiful.

Constant Companionship Is Not Enjoyable, Any More Than Constant Eating. We Sit Too Long At The Table Of Friendship, When We Outsit Our Appetites For Each Other's Thoughts.

The Body Of A Sensualist Is The Coffin Of A Dead Soul.

Good Men Have The Fewest Fears. He Has But One Great Fear Who Fears To Do Wrong; He Has A Thousand Who Has Overcome It.

Even When We Fancy We Have Grown Wiser, It Is Only, It May Be, That New Prejudices Have Displaced Old Ones.

Earnestness Is The Devotion Of All The Faculties.

Hope Is The Best Part Of Our Riches.

A Mother Is The Best Friend God Ever Gave.

Funny Inspirational

Our Opinions Partake, More Or Less, Of The Prejudices Of Our Class, Party, Or Sect. We Are All Largely Pledged, Through Interest, Affection, Or Passion, To Particular Classes Of Opinion, And The Strength Of Efforts To Get Released From These Pledges, Is The Measure Of Our Advancement.

Bad Taste Is A Species Of Bad Morals.

Living With A Saint Is More Grueling Than Being One.

Christian Living

The Knowledge Beyond All Other Knowledge Is The Knowledge How To Excuse.

There Are Some Weaknesses That Are Peculiar And Distinctive To Generous Characters, As Freckles Are To A Fair Skin.

Common Sense, Alas In Spite Of Our Educational Institutions, Is A Rare Commodity.

There Would Not Be So Much Harm In The Giddy Following The Fashions, If Somehow The Wise Could Always Set Them.

The Busiest Of Living Agents Are Certain Dead Men's Thoughts.

The Method Of The Enterprising Is To Plan With Audacity And Execute With Vigor.

The Worth Of A Book Is A Matter Of Expressed Juices.

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.

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.

Poverty Is Only Contemptible When It Is Felt To Be So. Doubtless The Best Way To Make Our Poverty Respectable Is To Seem Never To Feel It As An Evil.

The Highest Excellence Is Seldom Attained In More Than One Vocation. The Roads Leading To Distinction In Separate Pursuits Diverge, And The Nearer We Approach The One, The Farther We Recede From The Other.

Excellence In Art Is Largely The Result Of Attention To Minutiae, And--prayer.

Example Has More Followers Than Reason. We Unconsciously Imitate What Pleases Us, And Approximate To The Characters We Most Admire.

Besides The Five Senses, There Is A Sixth Sense, Of Equal Importance--the Sense Of Duty.

Love's Sweetest Meanings Are Unspoken; The Full Heart Knows No Rhetoric Of Words.

There Is No Tyrant Like Custom, And No Freedom Where Its Edicts Are Not Resisted.

Successful Love Takes A Load Off Our Hearts, And Puts It Upon Our Shoulders.

Few Minds Wear Out; More Rust Out.

It Is Of Very Little Use In Trying To Be Dignified, If Dignity Is No Part Of Your Character.

We Should Not So Much Esteem Our Poverty As A Misfortune, Were It Not That The World Treats It So Much As A Crime

Hunger And Poverty

All Men Are Alike In Their Lower Natures; It Is In Their Higher Characters That They Differ.

Wine Is A Treacherous Friend Who You Must Always Be On Guard For.

Pleasure And Pain Spring Not So Much From The Nature Of Things, As From Our Manner Of Considering Them. Pleasure, Especially, Is Never An Invariable Effect Of Particular Circumstances.

False Friends Are Like Our Shadow, Keeping Close To Us While We Walk In The Sunshine, But Leaving Us The Instant We Cross Into The Shade.

To No Circumstance Is The Wide Diffusion Of Error In The World More Owing Than To Our Habit Of Adopting Conclusions From Insufficiently Established Data. An Indispensable Preliminary, Then, In Every Investigation, Is To Get At Facts. Until These Are Arrived At, Every Opinion, Theory, Or System, However Ingeniously Framed, Must Necessarily Rest Upon An Uncertain Basis.

Passion Looks Not Beyond The Moment Of Its Existence. Better, It Says, The Kisses Of Love To Day, Than The Felicities Of Heaven Afar Off.

Genius Makes Its Observations In Short-hand; Talent Writes Them Out At Length.

Genuine Religion Is Matter Of Feeling Rather Than Matter Of Opinion.

Qualities Not Regulated Run Into Their Opposites. Economy Before Competence Is Meanness After It. Therefore Economy Is For The Poor; The Rich May Dispense With It.

Vanity In An Old Man Is Charming. It Is A Proof Of An Open, Nature. Eighty Winters Have Not Frozen Him Up, Or Taught Him Concealments. In A Young Person It Is Simply Allowable; We Do Not Expect Him To Be Above It.

Melancholy Sees The Worst Of Things...[rather Than The Best]

The Trouble With Men Of Sense Is That They Are So Dreadfully In Earnest All The While.

Neither Love Nor Ambition, As It Has Often Been Shown, Can Brook A Division Of Its Empire In The Heart.

Something Of A Person's Character May Be Observed By How They Smile. Some Never Smile They Only Grin.

Within The Sacred Walls Of Libraries We Find The Best Thoughts, The Purest Feelings, And The Most Exalted Imaginings Of Our Race.

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.

The Cheerful Live Longest In Years, And Afterwards In Our Regards. Cheerfulness Is The Off-shoot Of Goodness.

Words Of Praise, Indeed, Are Almost As Necessary To Warm A Child Into A Genial Life As Acts Of Kindness And Affection. Judicious Praise Is To Children What The Sun Is To Flowers.

A Strong Will Deals With The Hard Facts Of Life As A Sculptor With His Marbles, Making Them Facile And Yielding To His Purposes, And Conquering Their Stubbornness By A Greater Stubbornness In Himself.

The Best Evidence Of Merit Is A Cordial Recognition Of It Whenever And Wherever It May Be Found.

The Loveliest Faces Are To Be Seen By Moonlight, When One Sees Half With The Eye And Half With The Fancy.

Example Has Far More Followers Than Reason.

All Good Writing Leaves Something Unexpressed.

Heaven Lent You A Soul, Earth Will Lend A Grave.

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.

Perhaps The Heroic Element In Our Natures Is Exhibited To The Best Advantage, Not In Going From Success To Success, And So On Through A Series Of Triumphs, But In Gathering, On The Very Field Of Defeat Itself, The Materials For Renewed Efforts, And In Proceeding, With No Abatement Of Heart Or Energy, To Form Fresh Designs Upon The Very Ruins And Ashes Of Blasted Hopes. Yes, It Is This Indomitable Persistence In A Purpose, Continued Alike Through Defeat And Success, That Makes, More Than Aught Else, The Hero.

No Man Is Happy Without A Delusion Of Some Kind. Delusions Are As Necessary To Our Happiness As Realities.

The First Step Toward Greatness Is To Be Honest, Says The Proverb; But The Proverb Fails To State The Case Strong Enough. Honesty Is Not Only "the First Step Toward Greatness," - It Is Greatness Itself.

It Is Some Compensation For Great Evils, That They Enforce Great Lessons.

There Is A German Proverb Which Says That Take-it-easy And Live-long Are Brothers.

Youth Is Too Tumultuous For Felicity; Old Age Too Insecure For Happiness. The Period Most Favorable To Enjoyment, In A Vigorous, Fortunate, And Generous Life, Is That Between Forty And Sixty.

Satire Is An Abuse Of Wit. It Corrects Few Evils.

Courage Enlarges, Cowardice Diminishes Resources.

Like The Withered Roses Of A Once Gay Garland, The Feelings Of Youth Command In Age A Melancholy Interest.

Who Aspires To Remain Leader Must Keep In Advance Of His Column. His Fear Must Not Play Traitor To His Occasions. The Instant He Falls Into Line With His Followers, A Bolder Spirit May Throw Himself At The Head Of The Movement Initiated, And In That Moment His Leadership Is Gone.

Successful Minds Work Like A Gimlet--to A Single Point.

Fame - A Few Words Upon A Tombstone, And The Truth Of Those Not To Be Depended On.

Contentment Is Not Happiness. An Oyster May Be Contented. Happiness Is Compounded Of Richer Elements.

Our First And Last Love Is Self-love.

Funny Valentines Day

Hunting Is A Relic Of The Barbarism That Once Thirsted For Human Blood, But Is Now Content With The Blood Of Animals.

It Is So Natural For Us To Consider Our Presence As Indispensable In The World, So Long As We Have Much To Do In It, That The Wisdom Of Retiring Wholly From Employments In Advanced Life May Be Questioned. Certainly, He Who Does So Is In Danger Of Finding, Before Long, That He Has Only Given Up The Occupation To Which He Has Been Accustomed, For The New Business Of Calculating The Period Of His Decease.

Elements Of The Heroic Exist In Almost Every Individual: It Is Only The Felicitous Development Of Them All In One That Is Rare.

To Be Without Sympathy Is To Be Alone In The World--without Friends Or Country, Home Or Kindred.

It Is With Charity As With Money--the More We Stand In Need Of It, The Less We Have To Give Away.

A Peculiar Work In Any Art Must Not Be Too Hastily Judged. New Styles Have To Create New Tastes.

We Repose Too Much Upon The Actual, When We Should Be Seeking To Develop The Possibilities Of Our Being. It Is True Of Nearly All Of Us, That What We Have Done Is Little Compared With What We Might Have Accomplished, Or May Hereafter Effect.

There Is, Indeed, No Wild Beast More To Be Dreaded Than A Communicative Man Having Nothing To Communicate.

The Most Brilliant Flashes Of Wit Come From A Clouded Mind, As Lightning Leaps Only From An Obscure Firmament.

Wit Is Better As A Seasoning Than As A Whole Dish By Itself.

"there Is Nothing," Says A Correspondent Of The New York Times, "which The Business World Discards As Unpractical And Useless So Much As The Quiet, Thinking Scholar. But This Is The Man Who Makes Revolutions. Politicians Are Mere Puppets In The Hands Of Men Of Thought.

Activity And Sadness Are Incompatible.

Loss Of Sincerity Is Loss Of Vital Power.

Panic Is A Sudden Desertion Of Us, And A Going Over To The Enemy Of Our Imagination.

One Must Have Been, At Some Time Or Other, In A Situation Where A Small Sum Was As Necessary Almost As Life Itself, With No More Ability To Raise It Than To Raise The Dead, Before He Can Fully Appreciate The Value Of Money.

It Is One Of The Arts Of A Great Beauty To Heighten The Effect Of Her Charms By Affecting To Be Sweetly Unconscious Of Them.

The Use We Make Of Our Fortune Determines Its Sufficiency. A Little Is Enough If Used Wisely, And Too Much If Expended Foolishly.

Merit Is Never So Conspicuous As When Coupled With An Obscure Origin, Just As The Moon Never Appears So Lustrous As When It Emerges From A Cloud.

To Quote Copiously And Well, Requires Taste, Judgment, And Erudition, A Feeling For The Beautiful, An Appreciation Of The Noble, And A Sense Of The Profound.

We Cannot Reason Ourselves Into Love, Nor Can We Reason Ourselves Out Of It, Which Suggests That Love And Reason Have Little To Do With Each Other.

Dishonest People Conceal Their Faults From Themselves As Well As Others, Honest People Know And Confess Them.

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.

Doubt Whom You Will, But Never Yourself.

We Fear Things In Proportion To Our Ignorance Of Them.

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.

Care, Admitted As Guest, Quickly Turns To Be Master.

Troubles Forereckoned Are Doubly Suffered.

Trending Author

Kingman Brewster, Jr.

Category