Explore popular quotes and sayings by George D. Prentice.
Last updated on November 21, 2024.
George Dennison Prentice was a newspaper editor, writer and poet who built the Louisville Journal into a major newspaper in Louisville, Kentucky, and the Ohio River Valley, in part by the virulence and satire in its editorials, which some blamed for a bloody election day riot in 1855. A slaveholder, Prentice initially supported Unionist candidate John Bell in the 1860 U.S. Presidential election, and after the American Civil War he urged Kentucky to remain neutral. Both of his sons joined the Confederate States Army, one dying in 1862, and Prentice's editorials lampooned Kentucky's military governor, Union General Stephen G. Burbridge. Prentice later opposed Congressional Reconstruction. He wrote a biography of Henry Clay published in 1831, an 1836 poem published in the McGuffey Readers, and a collection of his humorous essays was published in 1859 and revised after his death.
Our material possessions, like our joys, are enhanced in value by being shared. Hoarded and unimproved property can only afford satisfaction to a miser.
A dentist at work in his vocation always looks down in the mouth.
Some people have a peculiar faculty for denying facts.
A word of kindness is seldom spoken in vain, while witty saying are as easily lost as the pearls slipping from a broken string.
When a man has been intemperate so long that shame no longer paints a blush upon his cheek, his liquor generally does it instead.
The waves Of the mysterious death-river moaned; The tramp, the shout, the fearful thunder-roar Of red-breathed cannon, and the wailing cry Of myriad victims, filled the air.
Prudery is often immodestly modest; its habit is to multiply sentinels in proportion as the fortress is less threatened.
Some men give as little light in the world as a farthing tallow candle, and when they expire, leave as bad an odor behind them.
Some old women and men grow bitter with age; the more their teeth drop out, the more biting they get.
It is undoubtedly true that some people mistake sycophancy for good nature, but it is equally true that many more mistake impertinence for sincerity.
Gone! gone forever!-like a rushing wave
Another year has burst upon the shore
Of earthly being-and its last low tones,
Wandering in broken accents in the air,
Are dying to an echo.
In New York City, the common bats fly only at twilight. Brick-bats fly at all hours.
We are in favor of tolerance, but it is a very difficult thing to tolerate the intolerant and impossible to tolerate the intolerable.
A man bitten by a dog, whether the animal is mad or not, is apt to get mad himself.
What some name well being, if bought by perpetual nervousness about weight loss plan, is not a lot better than tedious illness.
A word of kindness is seldom spoken in vain. It can be and is often treasured by the recipient for life.
Time knows not the weight of sleep or weariness, and night's deep darkness has no chain to bind his rushing pinion.
It is, perhaps, a debatable question, whether a person who has always been notoriously in the habit of lying, has a right to tell the truth; it is, of course, the only device by which he can deceive people.
One of the very best of all earthly possessions is self-possession.
A great many political speeches are literary parricides; they kill their fathers.
Those who think that in order to dress well it is necessary to dress extravagantly or grandly, make a great mistake. Nothing so well becomes true feminine beauty as simplicity.
There is a realm where the rainbow never fades
Remorseless time! fierce spirit of the glass and scythe,--what power can stay him in his silent course, or melt his iron heart with pity!
He is a first-rate collector who can, upon all occasions, collect his wits.
Courage, like cowardice, is undoubtedly contagious, but some persons are not liable to catch it.
If you woo the company of the angels in your waking hours, they will be sure to come to you in your sleep.
Some people use half their ingenuity to get into debt, and the other half to avoid paying it.
It seems no more than right that men should seize time by the forelock, for the rude old fellow, sooner or later, pulls all their hair out.
Many a writer seems to think he is never profound except when he can't understand his own meaning.
Prejudice is the twin of illiberality.
Many writers profess great exactness in punctuation who never yet made a point.
A good many men and women want to get possession of secrets just as spendthrifts want to get money-for circulation.
Some men's ugliness is hard to beat.
Some things are better eschewed than chewed; tobacco is one of them.