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The Discovery Of A Grey Hair When You Are Brushing Out Your Whiskers Of A Morning—first Fallen Flake Of The Coming Snows Of Age—is A Disagreeable Thing.... So Are Flying Twinges Of Gout, Shortness Of Breath On The Hill-side, The Fact That Even The Moderate Use Of Your Friend's Wines At Dinner Upsets You. These Things Are Disagreeable Because They Tell You That You Are No Longer Young—that You Have Passed Through Youth, Are Now In Middle Age, And Faring Onward To The Shadows In Which, Somewhere, A Grave Is Hid.

-Alexander Smith

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The Discovery Of A

Alexander Smith

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The Discovery Of A Grey Hair When You Are Brushing Out Your Whiskers Of A Morning—first Fallen Flake Of The Coming Snows Of Age—is A Disagreeable Thing.... So Are Flying Twinges Of Gout, Shortness Of Breath On The Hill-side, The Fact That Even The Moderate Use Of Your Friend's Wines At Dinner Upsets You. These Things Are Disagreeable Because They Tell You That You Are No Longer Young—that You Have Passed Through Youth, Are Now In Middle Age, And Faring Onward To The Shadows In Which, Somewhere, A Grave Is Hid.

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The Discovery Of A Grey Hair When You Are Brushing Out Your Whiskers Of A Morning - First Fallen Flake Of The Coming Snows Of Age - Is A Disagreeable Thing.

Thoughts Must Come Naturally, Like Wild-flowers; They Cannot Be Forced In A Hot-bed, Even Although Aided By The Leaf-mould Of Your Past.

Seated In My Library At Night, And Looking On The Silent Faces Of My Books, I Am Occasionally Visited By A Strange Sense Of The Supernatural.

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.

It Is The Sternest Philosophy, But On The Whole The Truest, That, In The Wide Arena Of The World, Failure And Success Are Not Accidents, As We So Frequently Suppose, But The Strictest Justice.

Success And Failure

A Man Can Bear A World's Contempt When He Has That Within Which Says He's Worthy. When He Contemns Himself, There Burns The Hell.

Books Are A Finer World Within The World. (1863)

If You Do Your Fair Day's Work, You Are Certain To Get Your Fair Day's Wage - In Praise Or Pudding, Whichever Happens To Suit Your Taste.

In Life There Is Nothing More Unexpected And Surprising Than The Arrivals And Departures Of Pleasure. If We Find It In One Place Today, It Is Vain To Seek It There Tomorrow. You Can Not Lay A Trap For It.

In Winter, When The Dismal Rain Comes Down In Slanting Lines, And Wind, That Grand Old Harper, Smote His Thunder-harp Of Pines.

Winter Does Not Work Only On A Broad Scale; He Is Careful In Trifles.

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.

A Brave Soul Is A Thing Which All Things Serve.

Death Is The Ugly Fact Which Nature Has To Hide, And She Hides It Well.

Trees Are Your Best Antiques

I Go Into My Library, And All History Unrolls Before Me. I Breathe The Morning Air Of The World While The Scent Of Eden's Roses Yet Lingered In It, While It Vibrated Only To The World's First Brood Of Nightingales, And To The Laugh Of Eve. I See The Pyramids Building; I Hear The Shoutings Of The Armies Of Alexander.

A Tender Sadness Drops Upon My Soul, Like The Soft Twilight Dropping On The World.

Some Books Are Drenchèd Sandson Which A Great Soul's Wealth Lies All In Heaps,like A Wrecked Argosy.

The Discovery Of A Grey Hair When You Are Brushing Out Your Whiskers Of A Morning—first Fallen Flake Of The Coming Snows Of Age—is A Disagreeable Thing.... So Are Flying Twinges Of Gout, Shortness Of Breath On The Hill-side, The Fact That Even The Moderate Use Of Your Friend's Wines At Dinner Upsets You. These Things Are Disagreeable Because They Tell You That You Are No Longer Young—that You Have Passed Through Youth, Are Now In Middle Age, And Faring Onward To The Shadows In Which, Somewhere, A Grave Is Hid.

Every Man's Road In Life Is Marked By The Grave Of His Personal Likings.

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.

A Man's Real Possession Is His Memory. In Nothing Else Is He Rich, In Nothing Else Is He Poor.

I Have Learned To Prize The Quiet, Lightning Deed, Not The Applauding Thunder At Its Heels That Men Call Fame.

Style, After All, Rather Than Thought, Is The Immortal Thing In Literature.

Fame Is But An Inscription On A Grave, And Glory The Melancholy Blazon On A Coffin Lid.

A Man Does Not Plant A Tree For Himself; He Plants It For Posterity.

I Would Rather Be Remembered By A Song Than By A Victory.

The Truly Great Rest In The Knowledge Of Their Own Deserts, Nor Seek The Conformation Of The World.

Love Is But The Discovery Of Ourselves In Others, And The Delight In The Recognition.

The World Is Not So Much In Need Of New Thoughts As That When Thought Grows Old And Worn With Usage It Should, Like Current Coin, Be Called In, And, From The Mint Of Genius, Reissued Fresh And New.

Flipping A Coin

The Greatness Of An Artist Or A Writer Does Not Depend On What He Has In Common With Other Artists And Writers, But On What He Has Peculiar To Himself.

Men And Women Make Their Own Beauty Or Their Own Ugliness. Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton Speaks In One Of His Novels Of A Man "who Was Uglier Than He Had Any Business To Be;" And, If We Could But Read It, Every Human Being Carries His Life In His Face, And Is Good-looking Or The Reverse As That Life Has Been Good Or Evil. On Our Features The Fine Chisels Of Thought And Emotion Are Eternally At Work.

Your Death And My Death Are Mainly Of Importance To Ourselves. The Black Plumes Will Be Stripped Off Our Hearses Within The Hour; Tears Will Dry, Hurt Hearts Close Again, Our Graves Grow Level With The Church-yard, And Although We Are Away, The World Wags On. It Does Not Miss Us; And Those Who Are Near Us, When The First Strangeness Of Vacancy Wears Off, Will Not Miss Us Much Either.

A Man Gazing At The Stars Is Proverbially At The Mercy Of The Puddles In The Road.

The Dead Keep Their Secrets, And In A While We Shall Be As Wise As They - And As Taciturn.

Keeping Secrets

Every Day Travels Toward Death; The Last Only Arrives At It.

My Friend Is Not Perfect-no More Than I Am-and So We Suit Each Other Admirable.

We Have Two Lives; The Soul Of Man Is Like The Rolling World, One Half In Day, The Other Dipt In Night; The One Has Music And The Flying Cloud, The Other, Silence And The Wakeful Stars.

Yet Through All, We Know This Tangled Skein Is In The Hands Of One, Who Sees The End From The Beginning: He Shall Unravel All.

The Only Thing A Man Knows Is Himself.

A Poem Round And Perfect As A Star.

Everything Is Sweetened By Risk.

God Has Thickly Strewn Infinity With Grandeur.

There Is No Ghost So Difficult To Lay As The Ghost Of An Injury.

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.

Death, Which We Are Accustomed To Consider An Evil, Really Acts For Us The Friendliest Part, And Takes Away The Commonplace Of Existence.

To Bring The Best Human Qualities To Anything Like Perfection, To Fill Them With The Sweet Juices Of Courtesy And Charity, Prosperity, Or, At All Events, A Moderate Amount Of It, Is Required,--just As Sunshine Is Needed For The Ripening Of Peaches And Apricots.

An Old Novel Has A History Of Its Own.

Each Time We Love,we Turn A Nearer And A Broader Markto That Keen Archer, Sorrow, And He Strikes.

To Be Occasionally Quoted Is The Only Fame I Care For.

Eternity Doth Wear Upon Her Face The Veil Of Time. They Only See The Veil, And Thus They Know Not What They Stand So Near!

How Deeply Seated In The Human Heart Is The Liking For Gardens And Gardening.

My Garden, With Its Silence And Pulses Of Fragrance That Come And Go On The Airy Undulations, Affects Me Like Sweet Music. Care Stops At The Gates, And Gazes At Me Wistfully Through The Bars.

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 Globe Has Been Circumnavigated, But No Man Ever Yet Has; You May Survey A Kingdom And Note The Result In Maps, But All The Savants In The World Could Not Produce A Reliable Map Of The Poorest Human Personality.

Most Brilliant Star Upon The Crest Of Time Is England. England!

If You Wish To Preserve Your Secret, Wrap It Up In Frankness.

If A Man Is Worth Knowing At All, He Is Worth Knowing Well.

Sweet April's Tears, Dead On The Hem Of May.

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.

The Sun Was Down, And All The West Was Paved With Sullen Fire. I Cried, Behold! The Barren Beach Of Hell At Ebb Of Tide.

One Never Hugs One's Good Luck So Affectionately As When Listening To The Relation Of Some Horrible Misfortunes Which Has Overtaken Others.

To Have To Die Is A Distinction Of Which No Man Is Proud.

Nature Never Quite Goes Along With Us. She Is Somber At Weddings, Sunny At Funerals, And She Frowns On Ninety-nine Out Of A Hundred Picnics.

The Sea Complains Upon A Thousand Shores.

The Saddest Thing That Befalls A Soul Is When It Loses Faith In God And Woman.

We Are Never Happy; We Can Only Remember That We Were So Once.

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.

If You Wish To Make A Man Look Noble, Your Best Course Is To Kill Him. What Superiority He May Have Inherited From His Race, What Superiority Nature May Have Personally Gifted Him With, Comes Out In Death.

Happiness Never Lays Its Finger On Its Pulse. If We Attempt To Steal A Glimpse Of Its Features It Disappears.

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.

A Single Soul Is Richer Than All The Worlds.

I Go Into My Library And All History Unrolls Before Me.

Libraries And Librarians

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.

We Twain Have Met Like The Ships Upon The Sea, Who Behold An Hour's Converse, So Short, So Sweet: One Little Hour! And Then, Away They Speed On Lonely Paths, Through Mist, And Cloud, And Foam, To Meet No More.

Men Praise Poverty, As The African Worships Mumbo Jumbo--from Terror Of The Malign Power, And A Desire To Propitiate At.

We Bury Love; Forgetfulness Grows Over It Like Grass: That Is A Thing To Weep For, Not The Dead.

The Pale Child, Eve, Leading Her Mother, Night.

To-day Is Always Different From Yesterday.

To Sit For One's Portrait Is Like Being Present At One's Own Creation.

It Is A Characteristic Of Pleasure That We Can Never Recognize It To Be Pleasure Till After It Is Gone.

Characteristics

Pleasure Has No Logic; It Never Treads In Its Own Footsteps.

Good-humor And, Generosity Carry Day With The Popular Heart All The World Over.

In My Garden I Spend My Days; In My Library I Spend My Nights.

And In Any Case, To The Old Man, When The World Becomes Trite, The Triteness Arises Not So Much From A Cessation As From A Transference Of Interest. What Is Taken From This World Is Given To The Next. The Glory Is In The East In The Morning, It Is In The West In The Afternoon, And When It Is Dark The Splendour Is Irradiating The Realm Of The Under-world. He Would Only Follow.

Stirling, Like A Huge Brooch, Clasps Highlands And Lowlands Together.

The Spot Of Ground On Which A Man Has Stood Is Forever Interesting To Him.

There Is Nothing Good In This World Which Time Does Not Improve.

Vanity In Its Idler Moments Is Benevolent, Is As Willing To Give Pleasure As To Take It, And Accepts As Sufficient Reward For Its Services A Kind Word Or An Approving Smile.

The Great Man Is The Man Who Does A Thing For The First Time.

Not On The Stage Alone, In The World Also, A Man's Real Character Comes Out Best In His Asides.

The Man Who In This World Can Keep The Whiteness Of His Soul Is Not Likely To Lose It In Any Other.

Christmas Is The Day That Holds All Time Together.

Pride's Chickens Have Bonny Feathers, But They Are An Expensive Brood To Rear. They Eat Up Everything, And Are Always Lean When Brought To Market.

My Heart Like Moon-charmed Waters, All Unrest.

If The Egotist Is Weak, His Egotism Is Worthless. If The Egotist Is Strong, Acute, Full Of Distinctive Character, His Egotism Is Precious, And Remains A Possession Of The Race.

There Is A Certain Even-handed Justice In Time; And For What He Takes Away He Gives Us Something In Return. He Robs Us Of Elasticity Of Limb And Spirit, And In Its Place He Brings Tranquility And Repose—the Mild Autumnal Weather Of The Soul.

A Bottomless Pit Of Violence, A Tower Of Babel Where All Are Speakers And No Hearers.

The Pleased Sea On A White-breasted Shore-- A Shore That Wears On Her Alluring Brows Rare Shells, Far Brought, The Love-gifts Of The Sea, That Blushed A Tell-tale.

In The Entire Circle Of The Year There Are No Days So Delightful As Those Of A Fine October.

In My Garden, Care Stops At The Gate And Gazes At Me Wistfully Through The Bars.

Trifles Make Up The Happiness Or The Misery Of Mortal Life.

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