CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE QUOTES V

American author (1820-1904)

• «
• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• 5
• 6
• 7
• 8
• 9
• 10
• »

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

CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE

---

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

CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE

---

He half retrieves a defeat who yields to it gracefully.

CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE

---

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.

CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE

---

If one could only tear down his character, as old buildings are torn down, and build it up anew, as these are rebuilt! And so, in effect, it can be. A noble property of character is, that it is susceptible of improvement.

CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE

---

Many children, many cares; no children, no felicity.

CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE

---

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.

CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE

---

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

CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE

---

The questions most furiously discussed are those which have in them a basis of truth, and yet a large admixture of errors. We inconsiderately take hold of, and mistakingly support or oppose them, as either wholly true or wholly false.

CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE

---

The rules of etiquette were established mostly by women, are chiefly for the benefit of women, and are mainly suited only to the nature of women; and a too punctilious observance of them by a man, goes to show that over-refinement has nearly unsexed him.

CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE

---

A perfect work destroys the critic's art.

CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE

---

All greatness in performance rests upon a basis of details. A knowledge of what is general to a subject may suffice for the merely learned man, but a thorough knowledge of details is necessary to form the adept.

CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE

---

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

CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE

---

Contentment is not happiness. An oyster may be contented. Happiness is compounded of richer elements.

CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE

---

Courage and timidity are the accompaniments of opposite tendencies of thought. The brave think only of the blows they will strike; the timid of those they may receive.

CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE

---

Evils are to be traced to their sources, and struck at there. Like Barbary pirates, they are to be destroyed through the suppression of the state that sends them forth.

CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE

---

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.

CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE

---

Habits influence the character pretty much as undercurrents influence a vessel, and whether they speed us on the way of our wishes, or retard our progress, their influence is not the less important because imperceptible.

CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE

---

He must put his whole life into his work, who would do it well, and make it potential to influence other lives.

CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE

---

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

CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE

---

• «
• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• 5
• 6
• 7
• 8
• 9
• 10
• »