American author (1820-1904)
Kindness: A language which the dumb can speak, and the deaf can understand.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
None but those who have loved can be supposed to understand the oratory of the eye, the mute eloquence of a look, or the conversational powers of the face. Love's sweetest meanings are unspoken; the full heart knows no rhetoric of words, and resorts to the pantomime of sighs and glances.
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
For every great evil, apparently irremediable, there is reserved, it is probable, somewhere in the design of Providence, an effectual remedy.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
There would not be so much harm in the giddy following the fashions, if somehow the wise could always set them.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
We absolve a friend from gratitude when we remind him of a favor.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
Home never appears to us so beautiful as when we are remote from it.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
Few marry their first loves; fewer ought to. The love of the very young is like the love of children for sweetmeats: they usually outgrow it.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
We repose too much upon the actual, when we should be seeking to develop the possibilities of our being. It is true of nearly all of us, that what we have done is little compared with what we might have accomplished, or may hereafter effect.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
The thing most prejudicial to health is to be always thinking of it. It is, indeed, an indispensable requisite to the enjoyment of life and health, that little attention should be paid to little symptoms. One should not think himself dead until he is so.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
The wise build their doctrines--theological and philosophical--upon a basis of probabilities, never upon the foundation of absolute certainty.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
A failure usually establishes only this, that our determination to succeed was not strong enough.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
It is not the number of facts he knows, but how much of a fact he is himself, that proves the man.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
It is only an error of judgment to make a mistake, but it argues an infirmity of character to adhere to it when discovered.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
We cannot reason ourselves into love, nor can we reason ourselves out of it, which suggests that love and reason have little to do with each other.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
One must have been, at some time or other, in a situation where a small sum was as necessary almost as life itself, with no more ability to raise it than to raise the dead, before he can fully appreciate the value of money.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
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.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
A great destiny needs a generous diet.... What can be expected of a people that live on macaroni!
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
Elements of the heroic exist in almost every individual: it is only the felicitous development of them all in one that is rare.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
Perhaps the heroic element in our natures is exhibited to the best advantage, not in going from success to success, and so on through a series of triumphs, but in gathering, on the very field of defeat itself, the materials for renewed efforts, and in proceeding, with no abatement of heart or energy, to form fresh designs upon the very ruins and ashes of blasted hopes. Yes, it is this indomitable persistence in a purpose, continued alike through defeat and success, that makes, more than aught else, the hero.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought