American author (1820-1904)
The gayest young men make the gravest old men.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
A peculiar work in any art must not be too hastily judged. New styles have to create new tastes.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
Love of children is the homage of the heart to unsullied purity. Indeed, children are the bright side of life. From our sins and sorrows, how refreshing is it to turn to their artless ways and purer joys! Would that they could all be so educated, as not, in their after-years, to darken life by their offenses!
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
Courage and timidity are the accompaniments of opposite tendencies of thought. The brave think only of the blows they will strike; the timid of those they may receive.
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
Can that which is the greatest virtue in philosophy, Doubt (called "the father of inventions" by Galileo), be in religion what the priests term it, the greatest of sins?
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
We have two lessons to teach an enemy who despises us--to value himself less highly, and us more worthily.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
Great designs are not accomplished without enthusiasm of some sort. It is the inspiration of everything great.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
It is not meet that the strong, free limbs of manhood should be fettered by the silken threads of ceremony.
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
To death we owe our life; the passing of one generation opens a way for another.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
Habits influence the character pretty much as undercurrents influence a vessel, and whether they speed us on the way of our wishes, or retard our progress, their influence is not the less important because imperceptible.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
It requires a great genius to flatter successfully a great personage. The common arts of adulation are thrown away upon the exalted. They are so accustomed to these that they take little notice.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
As well might a flower complain of the bee which its sweetness attracts, as a pretty girl of being gazed at when she goes abroad. But the complaint is seldom made in earnest.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
I desire to go through life knowing as little of evil in it as possible. To this end, I sometimes avoid looking too closely into the nature of things, studying them only so far as they seem to be good, and abandoning interest in them as soon as their darker feature begin to appear. The good only deserves a hearty interest.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
One of the greatest bores in life is a too knowing fellow, who sees through all delusions, and will never let you enjoy any of them, not even your favorite ones, no matter how agreeable they may be, but must be always waking you out of some delicious dream, only to tell you, "My dear sir, you are dreaming;" as if it were not both proper and natural to dream. He forgets that many things are pleasant only while the delusions which make them so last.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
Truth comes to us from the past, as gold is washed down from the mountains of Sierra Nevada, in minute but precious particles, and intermixed with infinite alloy, the debris of the centuries.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
It is the passion that is in a kiss that gives it its sweetness: it is the affection in a kiss that sanctifies it.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
An illusion dissipated is an experience gained.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
Pride is like the beautiful acacia, that lifts its head proudly above its neighbor plants--forgetting that it too, like them, has its roots in the dirt.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought