Christian Nestell Bovee Quotes
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.
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.
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.
The opinions of the misanthropical rest upon this very partial basis, that they adopt the bad faith of a few as evidence of the worthlessness of all.
The lively and mercurial are as open books, with the leaves turned down at the notable passages. Their souls sit at the windows of their eyes, seeing and to be seen.
Tears are nature's lotion for the eyes. The eyes see better for being washed by them.
The passions are like fire, useful in a thousand ways and dangerous only in one, through their excess.
No man is happy without a delusion of some kind. Delusions are as necessary to our happiness as realities.
Music is the fourth great material want, first food, then clothes, then shelter, then music.
Dishonest people conceal their faults from themselves as well as others, honest people know and confess them.
There are some weaknesses that are peculiar and distinctive to generous characters, as freckles are to a fair skin.
Four sweet lips, two pure souls, and one undying affection, - these are love's pretty ingredients for a kiss.
A failure establishes only this, that our determination to succeed was not strong enough.
Honesty is not only "the first step toward greatness," - it is greatness itself.
Example has more followers than reason. We unconsciously imitate what pleases us, and approximate to the characters we most admire.
Courage enlarges, cowardice diminishes resources. In desperate straits the fears of the timid aggravate the dangers that imperil the brave.
Panic is a sudden desertion of us, and a going over to the enemy of our imagination.
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.
Earth took her shining station as a star, In Heaven's dark hall, high up the crowd of worlds.
Motives are better than actions. Men drift into crime. Of evil they do more than they contemplate, and of good they contemplate more than they do.
There is probably no hell for authors in the next world - they suffer so much from critics and publishers in this.
Weakness ineffectually seeks to disguise itself,--like a drunken man trying to show how sober he is.
There is great beauty in going through life without anxiety or fear. Half our fears are baseless, and the other half discreditable.
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.
The loveliest faces are to be seen by moonlight, when one sees half with the eye and half with the fancy.
In the assurance of strength there is strength; and they are the weakest, however strong, who have no faith in themselves or their powers.
Great warriors, like great earthquakes, are principally remembered for the mischief they have done.
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.
Fame - a few words upon a tombstone, and the truth of those not to be depended on.
To vindicate the sanctity of human life by taking it is an outrage upon reason. The spectacle of a human being dangling at the end of a gallows-rope is a degradation of humanity.
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.
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.
A sound discretion is not so much indicated by never making a mistake as by never repeating it.