American author (1820-1904)
The finest compliment that can be paid to a woman of sense is to address her as such.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
Youth is the season of receptivity, and should be devoted to acquirement; and manhood of power--that demands an earnest application. Old age is for revision.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
Age, that acquaints us with infirmities in ourselves, should make us tender in our reprehension of weakness elsewhere.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
Our courage is greater to dare a visible than an imagined danger. A visible danger rouses our energies to meet or avert it; a fancied peril appalls from its presenting nothing to be resisted. Thus, a panic is, usually, a sudden going over to the enemy of our imagination. All is then lost, for we have not only to fight against that enemy, but our imagination as well.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
Discretion is the salt, and fancy the sugar, of life: the one preserves, the other sweetens it.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
A young lady can only look charming at so much per yard. A pretty miss in calico is a lovely woman in silk; and a charming girl in muslin is an angel in satin. At least she thinks so, and who would contradict a lady?
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
The reveries of the dreamer advance his hopes, but not their realization. One good hour of earnest work is worth them all.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
Dreamers are half-way men of thought, and men of thought are half-way men of action.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
We serve the devil in our youth, God in our old age--thinking if we journey towards hell while our limbs are sound, we can turn when they fail us, and get to heaven on crutches.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
If one could only tear down his character, as old buildings are torn down, and build it up anew, as these are rebuilt! And so, in effect, it can be. A noble property of character is, that it is susceptible of improvement.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
It is invidious to distinguish particular men as adventurers: we are all such.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
Books are embalmed minds. They make the great of other days our present teachers.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
Ambition, in one respect, is like a singer's voice; pitched at too high a key, it breaks and comes to nothing.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
We should be sure, when we rebuke a want of charity, to do it with charity.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
Unmerited compliments are the keenest reproaches.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
No work deserves to be criticized that has not much in it that deserves to be applauded.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
We are far more the creatures of our ideas than of our circumstances.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
Great crimes seldom spring from any sudden demoralization in the natures of their perpetrators. What seems a fearful precipitation of character, is usually no more than the rending of a veil from the hitherto concealed parts of it.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
We trifle when we assign limits to our desires, since nature has set none.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
A sound discretion is not so much indicated by never making a mistake, as by never repeating it.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought