Best 271 quotes of Christian Nestell Bovee on MyQuotes

A book should be luminous not voluminous.

A better principle than this, that "the majority shall rule," is this other, that justice shall rule. "Justice," says the code of Justinian, "is the constant and perpetual desire to render every man his due.

Activity and sadness are incompatible.

Adhesion to one idea is monomania; to few, slavery.

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

Affliction, like the iron-smith, shapes as it smites.

A genuine passion is like a mountain stream; it admits of no impediment; it cannot go backward; it must go forward.

Age, that acquaints us with infirmities in ourselves, should make us tender in our reprehension of weakness elsewhere.

A good thought is indeed a great boon, for which God is to be first thanked; next he who is the first to utter it, and then, in a lesser, but still in a considerable degree, the friend who is the first to quote it to us. Whoever adopts and circulates a just thought, participates in the merit that originated it.

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

All good writing leaves something unexpressed.

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

All power is indeed weak compared with that of the thinker. He sits upon the throne of his Empire of Thought, mightier far than they who wield material sceptres.

A man cannot paint portraits till he has seen faces.

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

Ambitious princes value inherited kingdoms not so much as conquered provinces.

A mother is the best friend God ever gave.

A mother's love is indeed the golden link that binds youth to age; and he is still but a child, however time may have furrowed his cheek, or silvered his brow, who can yet recall, with a softened heart, the fond devotion, or the gentle chidings, of the best friend that God gives us.

An ambition to excel in petty things obstructs the progress to nobler aims.

An eager pursuit of fortune is inconsistent with a severe devotion to truth. The heart must grow tranquil before the thought can become searching.

A particular disappointment is seldom more than an excrescence upon the trunk of a general good--a shower that spoils the pleasure party, but refreshes and enriches the earth.

A peculiar work in any art must not be too hastily judged. New styles have to create new tastes.

A profusion of fancies and quotations is out of place in a love-letter. True feeling is always direct, and never deviates into by-ways to cull flowers of rhetoric.

As many suffer from too much as too little.

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

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

A strong will deals with the hard facts of life as a sculptor with his marbles, making them facile and yielding to his purposes, and conquering their stubbornness by a greater stubbornness in himself.

At the best, sarcasms, bitter irony, scathing wit, are a sort of swordplay of the mind. You pink your adversary, and he is forthwith dead; and then you deserve to be hung for it.

A woman's love, like lichens upon a rock, will still grow where even charity can find no soil to nurture itself.

Bad taste is a species of bad morals.

Beauty can afford to laugh at distinctions: it is itself the greatest distinction.

Besides the five senses, there is a sixth sense, of equal importance--the sense of duty.

Better freedom with a crust, than slavery with every luxury.

By his provocations to good-natured merriment, a humorist of the first water contributes as much to the sum of happiness as the gravest philosopher.

Can that which is the greatest virtue in philosophy, doubt (called by Galileo the father of invention), be in religion what the priests term it, the greatest of sins?

Care, admitted as guest, quickly turns to be master.

Cheerfulness is an offshoot of goodness and of wisdom.

Common sense, alas in spite of our educational institutions, is a rare commodity.

Complaint is. more contemptible than pitiful.

Constant companionship is not enjoyable, any more than constant eating. We sit too long at the table of friendship, when we outsit our appetites for each other's thoughts.

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

Courage enlarges, cowardice diminishes resources.

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

Difficulties, by bracing the mind to overcome them, assist cheerfulness, as exercise assists digestion.

Dignity of position adds to dignity of character, as well as to dignity of carriage. Give us a proud position, and we are impelled to act up to it.

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

Dishonesty is a forsaking of permanent for temporary advantages.

Dishonest people conceal their faults from themselves as well as others, honest people know and confess them.

Doubt whom you will, but never yourself.

Earnestness is the devotion of all the faculties.