Christian Nestell Bovee Quotations | Page 2

Give me the character and I will forecast the event.

It is easier to die bravely than to live so.

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!

The method of the critic is to balance praises with censure, and thus to do justice to the subject and--his own discrimination.

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.

By his provocations to good-natured merriment, a humorist of the first water contributes as much to the sum of happiness as the gravest philosopher.

An illusion dissipated is an experience gained.

The language denotes the man. A coarse or refined character finds its expression naturally in a coarse or refined phraseology.

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.

In art there are two principal schools between which each aspirant has to choose--one distinguished by its close adherence to nature, and the other by its strenuous efforts to get above it.

The worst deluded are the self-deluded.

Economy is for the poor; the rich may dispense with it.

The loveliest faces are to be seen by moonlight, when one sees half with the eye and half with the fancy.

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.

Dreamers are half-way men of thought, and men of thought are half-way men of action.

It is invidious to distinguish particular men as adventurers: we are all such.

Ambition, in one respect, is like a singer's voice; pitched at too high a key, it breaks and comes to nothing.

An ambition to excel in petty things obstructs the progress to nobler aims.

A peculiar work in any art must not be too hastily judged. New styles have to create new tastes.

Excellence in art is largely the result of attention to minutiae, and--prayer.

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.

Can that which is the greatest virtue in philosophy, doubt (called by Galileo the father of invention), be in religion what the priests term it, the greatest of sins?

Rejecting the miracles of Christ, we still have the miracle of Christ Himself.

It may almost be held that the hope of commercial gain has done nearly as much for the cause of truth as even the love of truth.

Complaint is. more contemptible than pitiful.

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.

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

Earnestness is the devotion of all the faculties.

Kindred weaknesses induce friendships as often as kindred virtues.

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.

Hope is the best part of our riches. What sufficeth it that we have the wealth of the Indies in our pockets, if we have not the hope of heaven in our souls?

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.

No single character is ever so great that a nation can afford to form itself upon it. Imitation belittles. This appears in the instance of the Chinese. The Chinese are so many Confucii; in miniature. And so with the Jews. Moses, the lawgiver, is poorly represented by Moses, the old clothesman ; or even by Dives, the hanker.

Whether one talks well depends very much upon whom he has to talk to.

We may learn from children how large a part of our grievances is imaginary. But the pain is just as real.

We should round every day of stirring action with an evening of thought. We learn nothing of our experience except we muse upon it.

Cheerfulness is an offshoot of goodness and of wisdom.

There are ceremonious bows that repel one like a cudgel.

The great obstacle to progress is prejudice

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.

There is, indeed, no wild beast more to be dreaded than a communicative man having nothing to communicate.

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.

Melancholy sees the worst of things, things as they may be, and not as they are. It looks upon a beautiful face, and sees but a grinning skull.

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.

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.

He has but one great fear that fears to do wrong.

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.

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.

Hunting is a relic of the barbarism that once thirsted for human blood, but is now content with the blood of animals.

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.

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.

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.

I once asked a distinguished artist what place he gave to labor in art. "Labor," he in effect said, "is the beginning, the middle, and the end of art." Turning then to another--"And you," I inquired, "what do you consider as the great force in art?" "Love," he replied. In their two answers I found but one truth.

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....

Love's sweetest meanings are unspoken; the full heart knows no rhetoric of words.

Many an honest man practices upon himself an amount of deceit sufficient, if practised upon another, and in a little different way, to send him to the state prison.

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

The greatest happiness comes from the greatest activity.

It is only an error in judgment to make a mistake, but it shows infirmity of character to adhere to it when discovered

The beauty seen is partly in him who sees it. [a predisposition to notice the beautiful, in everything.]

Alas, the transports beauty can inspire!

Formerly when great fortunes were only made in war, war was business; but now when great fortunes are only made by business: Business is war!

It is the nature of thought to find its way into action.

The cheerful live longest in years, and afterwards in our regards. Cheerfulness is the off-shoot of goodness.

There is probably no hell for authors in the next world - they suffer so much from critics and publishers in this.

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.

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.

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.

All men are alike in their lower natures; it is in their higher characters that they differ.

Melancholy sees the worst of things...[rather than the best]

It is some compensation for great evils, that they enforce great lessons.

Honesty is not only the first step toward greatness, it is greatness itself.

Books are embalmed minds.

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.

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.

It is safer to quote what is written than what is spoken. What a man writes it is fair to presume he believes as a matter of general conviction, but it is not so with what he utters in the freedom of conversation. In that he may only express the feeling of the moment, and not his settled judgment, or matured opinion.

A good thought is indeed a great boon, for which God is to be first thanked; next he who is the first to utter it, and then, in a lesser, but still in a considerable degree, the friend who is the first to quote it to us. Whoever adopts and circulates a just thought, participates in the merit that originated it.

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.

Affliction, like the iron-smith, shapes as it smites.

The light in the world comes principally from two sources,-the sun, and the student's lamp.

There is no tyrant like custom, and no freedom where its edicts are not resisted.

Pleasure and pain spring not so much from the nature of things, as from our manner of considering them in particular, what we compare them to.

The legitimate aim of criticism is to direct attention to the excellent. The bad will dig its own grave, and the imperfect may safely be left to that final neglect from which no amount of present undeserved popularity can rescue it.

Common sense, alas in spite of our educational institutions, is a rare commodity.

Examples are few of men ruined by giving.

Galileo called doubt the father of invention; it is certainly the pioneer.

Enthusiasm is the inspiration of everything great.

The greatest events of an age are its best thoughts. Thought finds its way into action.

It is our relation to circumstances that determine their influence over us. The same wind that blows one ship into port may blow another off shore.

Example has far more followers than reason.

Nature has provided for the exigency of privation, by putting the measure of our necessities far below the measure of our wants. Our necessities are to our wants as Falstaff's pennyworth of bread to his any quantity of sack.

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.

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

Weakness ineffectually seeks to disguise itself,--like a drunken man trying to show how sober he is.

Winter is the night of vegetation.

The most brilliant flashes of wit come from a clouded mind, as lightning leaps only from an obscure firmament.

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

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.

To death we owe our life; the passing of one generation opens a way for another.

He that shrinks from the grave with too great a dread, has an invisible fear behind him pushing him into it.