Top 30 Quotes & Sayings by James Ellis

The press should be the voice of the people, not of party.

A defeat to a brave man is only a victory deferred.

Dexterity is one of the chief weapons of diplomacy; governments rely more upon the supremacy of this instrument, when in the hands of a skillful diplomatist, than in the soundness or justice of their claims.

Better an ugly face than an ugly mind.

Let us lend cheerfully, for the time is pretty sure to come when we will wish to borrow.

Style in painting is the same as in writing,-a power over materials, whether words or colors.

An inherent sense of man makes him long for an eternal paradise.

Books are the beehives of thought; laconics, the honey taken from them.

Some few have a natural talent for office-bolding; very many for office-seeking.

Man's birth is a lottery; it may be in the pleasant home of ease and affluence, or in the hut of poverty; in either case it may be a stain or an honor. If he is born in poverty, and his future life throws a lustre over an humble birth, the reward will not only be great, but his name will stand higher on the roll of honor and virtue, than he who can only boast of his proud descent.

To the lazy man the world appears bereft of all blessings; if poor, he has no friends; if rich, he has no ambition; he aims at nothing, and generally hits his mark.

There is no heart without remorse, no life without some misfortune, no one but what is something stained with sin.

A knowledge of general literature is one of the evidences of an enlightened mind; and to give an apt quotation at a fitting time, proves that the mind is stored with sentential lore that can always be used to great advantage by its possessor.

Newspapers are the world's mirrors.

The mind paints before the brush.

Our own actions are the accidents of fortune that we sometimes place to the credit of luck or misfortune.

The greater part of our misfortunes are brought on by neglecting the chances that yesterday gave us.

Regrets over the past should chasten the future.

The rustling of the leaves is like a low hymn to nature.

Maxims are often quoted by those who stand in more need of their application.

The lazy man aims at nothing, and generally hits it.

Our leisure is the time the Devil seizes upon to make us work for him; and the only way we can avoid conscription into his ranks is to keep all our leisure moments profitably employed.

Angels worship God with purity and love; men, with fear and trembling.

True loyalty consists not in bowing the knee to earthly greatness, or in heroic deeds to "gild the kingly knave, or garnish out the fool," but in noble, generous acts of honest purpose, where truth, honor, and virtue, and a nation's welfare, are dearer than life.

Literature is the garden of wisdom.

We can all be heroes in our virtues, in our homes, in our lives.

Among all the accomplishments of life none are so important as refinement; it is not, like beauty, a gift of Nature, and can only be acquired by cultivation and practice.

Twilight is like death; the dark portal of night comes upon us, to open again in the glorious morning of immortality.

In winter we behold the charms of solemn majesty and naked grandeur.

It is a sure sign of a mind not balanced as it ought to be, when it is insensible to the pleasures of the domestic hearth, and to the little joys and endearments of a family.