Top 315 Quotes & Sayings by Christian Nestell Bovee

It is ever the invisible that is the object of our profoundest worship. With the lover it is not the seen but the unseen that he muses upon.

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.

As threshing separates the wheat from the chaff, so does affliction purify virtue.

Wine is a treacherous friend who you must always be on guard for.

Enthusiasm is the inspiration of everything great. Without it no man is to be feared, and with it none despised.

A sound discretion is not so much indicated by never making a mistake as by never repeating it.

Partial culture runs to the ornate, extreme culture to simplicity.

Genius makes its observations in short-hand; talent writes them out at length.

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

Doubt whom you will, but never yourself.

The passions are like fire, useful in a thousand ways and dangerous only in one, through their excess.

Next to being witty, the best thing is being able to quote another's wit.

Living with a saint is more grueling than being one.

Music is the fourth great material want, first food, then clothes, then shelter, then music.

We trifle when we assign limits to our desires, since nature hath set none.

No man is happy without a delusion of some kind. Delusions are as necessary to our happiness as realities.

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.

We fear things in proportion to our ignorance of them.

The great artist is a slave to his ideals.

The body of a sensualist is the coffin of a dead soul.

Heaven lent you a soul, Earth will lend a grave.

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.

They are the weakest, however strong, who have no faith in themselves or their own powers.

The small courtesies sweeten life; the greater ennoble it.

A failure establishes only this, that our determination to succeed was not strong enough.

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

In politics, merit is rewarded by the possessor being raised, like a target, to a position to be fired at.

The method of the enterprising is to plan with audacity and execute with vigor.

Earth took her shining station as a star, In Heaven's dark hall, high up the crowd of worlds.

Our first and last love is self-love.

Panic is a sudden desertion of us, and a going over to the enemy of our imagination.

Tearless grief bleeds inwardly.

Tranquil pleasures last the longest; we are not fitted to bear the burden of great joys.

Example has more followers than reason. We unconsciously imitate what pleases us, and approximate to the characters we most admire.

Tears are nature's lotion for the eyes. The eyes see better for being washed by them.

We make way for the man who boldly pushes past us.

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.

There is great beauty in going through life without anxiety or fear. Half our fears are baseless, and the other half discreditable.

When all else is lost, the future still remains.

Sensitiveness is closely allied to egotism; and excessive sensibility is only another name for morbid self-consciousness. The cure for tender sensibilities is to make more of our objects and less of our selves.

It is the passion that is in a kiss that gives to it its sweetness; it is the affection in a kiss that sanctifies it.

Courage enlarges, cowardice diminishes resources. In desperate straits the fears of the timid aggravate the dangers that imperil the brave.

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.

The beauty seen is partly in him who sees it.

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

A book should be luminous not voluminous.

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

Formerly when great fortunes were only made in war, war was a business; but now, when great fortunes are only made by business, business is war.

Winter is the night of vegetation.

Discretion is the salt, and fancy the sugar of life; the one preserves, the other sweetens it.

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.

Activity and sadness are incompatible.

The great obstacle to progress is prejudice

Too much society makes a man frivolous; too little, a savage.

Four sweet lips, two pure souls, and one undying affection, - these are love's pretty ingredients for a kiss.

We give our best affections to the beautiful, only our second best to the useful.

It is difficult to say which is the greatest evil--to have too violent passions, or to be wholly devoid of them. Controlled with firmness, guided by discretion, and hallowed by the imagination, the passions are the vivifiers and quickeners of our being. Without passion there can be no energy of character. Indeed, the passions are like fire, useful in a thousand ways, and dangerous only in one--through their excess.

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

A great destiny needs a generous diet.... What can be expected of a people that live on macaroni!

The nearest approximation to an understanding of life is to feel it--to realize it to the full--to be a profound and inscrutable mystery.