Christian Nestell Bovee (1820 – 1904)
Epigrammatic New York writer.
At all events, the next best thing to being witty one's self, is to be able to quote another's wit.
Patience is only one faculty; earnestness the devotion of all the faculties. Earnestness is the cause of patience; it gives endurance, overcomes pain, strengthens weakness, braves dangers, sustains hope, makes light of difficulties, and lessens the sense of weariness in overcoming them.
No man is happy without a delusion of some kind. Delusions are as necessary to our happiness as realities.
It is a barren kind of criticism which tells you what a thing is not.
What a man knows should find its expression in what he does. The value of superior knowledge is chiefly in that it leads to a performing manhood.
There is, indeed, no wild beast more to be dreaded than a communicative man having nothing to communicate.
Loss of sincerity is loss of vital power.
The first step toward greatness is to be honest, says the proverb; but the proverb fails to state the case strong enough. Honesty is not only "the first step toward greatness," — it is greatness itself.
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.
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.
Four sweet lips, two pure souls, and one undying affection,—these are love's pretty ingredients for a kiss.
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.
There is probably no hell for authors in the next world — they suffer so much from critics and publishers in this.
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.
He has but one great fear that fears to do wrong.
The great obstacle to progress is prejudice.
Loose ideas on the subject of business will not answer. It must be reduced to something of a science. It has its principles, upon a knowledge and an application of which, success in it mainly depends.
Example has more followers than reason. We unconsciously imitate what pleases us, and insensibly approximate to the characters we most admire. In this way, a generous habit of thought and of action carries with it an incalculable influence.
The light in the world comes principally from two sources,—the sun, and the student's lamp.
There is nothing," says a correspondent of the New York Times, "which the business world discards as unpractical and useless so much as the quiet, thinking scholar. But this is the man who makes revolutions. Politicians are mere puppets in the hands of men of thought.