Christian Nestell Bovee (1820–1904) was an American writer and aphorist. Bovee is the author of Thoughts, Feelings, and Fancies (1857) and Intuitions and Summaries of Thought (1862)—epigrams from these books are widely cited in contemporary anthologies of passages.
Born in New York City, Bovee received early instruction at private schools. After getting a law degree, he was admitted to the bar, and practiced law for many years with success.
Bovee was part of an intellectual circle that comprised of such luminaries as Washington Irving, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. at the Saturday Evening Club of Boston. He also co-founded The Athenaeum Club of New York and served as a regent of the Long Island College Hospital.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Christian Nestell Bovee
Affliction, like the iron-smith, shapes as it smites.
—Christian Nestell Bovee
Topics: Suffering
Courage enlarges, cowardice diminishes resources. In desperate straits the fears of the timid aggravate the dangers that imperil the brave.
—Christian Nestell Bovee
Topics: Courage, Bravery
The selection of a subject is to the author what choice of position is to the general,—once skillfully determined, the battle is already half won. Of a few writers it may be said, that they are popular in despite of their subjects—but of a great many more, that they are popular because of them.
—Christian Nestell Bovee
Topics: Literature
The legitimate aim of criticism is to direct attention to the excellent.—The bad will dig its own grave, and the imperfect may safely be left to that final neglect from which no amount of present undeserved popularity can rescue it.
—Christian Nestell Bovee
Topics: Criticism
Partial culture runs to the ornate, extreme culture to simplicity.
—Christian Nestell Bovee
Topics: Culture, Simplicity
Hunting is a relic of the barbarous spirit that thirsted formerly for human blood, but is now content with the blood of birds and animals.
—Christian Nestell Bovee
Topics: Hunting
Earth took her shining station as a star, In Heaven’s dark hall, high up the crowd of worlds.
—Christian Nestell Bovee
Topics: Earth
A pleasant illusion is better than a harsh reality.
—Christian Nestell Bovee
Topics: Illusion
Few minds wear out; more rust out.
—Christian Nestell Bovee
Topics: Mind, Thinking
Tearless grief bleeds inwardly.
—Christian Nestell Bovee
Topics: Tears, Grief, Crying
Between the man of talent and much information, and the man of genius, there is much the same difference as between a full tank and an unfailing fountain. The mind of the first is a receptacle of valuable facts, and possibly of rich and generous ideas, susceptible, however, of being exhausted; that of the latter is an original source of wisdom, which suffers no diminution by what it imparts.
—Christian Nestell Bovee
Youth is too tumultuous for felicity; old age too insecure for happiness. The period most favorable to enjoyment, in a vigorous, fortunate, and generous life, is that between forty and sixty.
—Christian Nestell Bovee
Topics: Living, Life, Youth
No man is happy without a delusion of some kind. Delusions are as necessary to our happiness as realities.
—Christian Nestell Bovee
Topics: Beliefs, Deception, Deception/Lying
We may learn from children how large a part of our grievances is imaginary. But the pain is just as real.
—Christian Nestell Bovee
Topics: Sorrow
There is no tyrant like custom, and no freedom where its edicts are not resisted.
—Christian Nestell Bovee
Topics: Custom
Galileo called doubt the father of invention; t is certainly the pioneer.
—Christian Nestell Bovee
Topics: Doubt
Discretion is the salt, and fancy the sugar of life; the one preserves, the other sweetens it.
—Christian Nestell Bovee
The past is the sepulchre of our dead emotions.
—Christian Nestell Bovee
Topics: Past
The more gross the fraud, the more glibly will it go down and the more greedily will it be swallowed, since folly will always find faith wherever impostors will find impudence.
—Christian Nestell Bovee
We degrade life by our follies and vices, and then complain that the unhappiness which is only their accompaniment is inherent in the constitution of things.
—Christian Nestell Bovee
Topics: Unhappiness
We should not so much esteem our poverty as a misfortune, were it not that the world treats it so.
—Christian Nestell Bovee
Topics: Poverty
The body of a sensualist is the coffin of a dead soul.
—Christian Nestell Bovee
Topics: Seduction
The loveliest faces are to be seen by moonlight, when one sees half with the eye, and half with the fancy.
—Christian Nestell Bovee
Topics: Beauty, Face
Dishonest people conceal their faults from themselves as well as others, honest people know and confess them.
—Christian Nestell Bovee
Topics: Honesty
The worst deluded are the self-deluded.
—Christian Nestell Bovee
Next to being witty yourself, the best thing is being able to quote another’s wit.
—Christian Nestell Bovee
Topics: Quotations
Examples are few of men ruined by giving.—Men are heroes in spending—cravens in what they give.
—Christian Nestell Bovee
Topics: Gifts
Kindred weaknesses induce friendships as often as kindred virtues.
—Christian Nestell Bovee
Topics: Friendship
He presents me with what is always an acceptable gift who brings me news of a great thought before unknown. He enriches me without impoverishing himself.
—Christian Nestell Bovee
Topics: Quotations
To quote copiously and well requires taste, judgment and erudition, a feeling for the beautiful, an appreciation of the noble, and a sense of the profound.
—Christian Nestell Bovee
Topics: Quotations
Hope is the best part of our riches.—What sufficeth it that we have the wealth of the Indies in our pockets, if we have not the hope of heaven in our souls?
—Christian Nestell Bovee
Topics: Hope, Part of The Whole
One who is contented with what he has done will never become famous for what he will do.—He has lain down to die, and the grass is already growing over him.
—Christian Nestell Bovee
Topics: Contentment
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
The great artist is a slave to his ideals.
—Christian Nestell Bovee
Topics: Arts, Art, Artists
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.
—Christian Nestell Bovee
Topics: Dignity
Activity and sadness are incompatible.
—Christian Nestell Bovee
Topics: Action
Next to God we are indebted to women, first for life itself, and then for making it worth having.
—Christian Nestell Bovee
Topics: Woman
Bad manners are a species of bad morals; a conscientious man will not offend in that way.
—Christian Nestell Bovee
Topics: Manners
Pleasure and pain spring not so much from the nature of things, as from our manner of considering them.—Pleasure especially, is never an invariable effect of particular circumstances.—Largely that is pleasure which is thought to be so.
—Christian Nestell Bovee
Topics: Pleasure
Tears are nature’s lotion for the eyes. The eyes see better for being washed by them.
—Christian Nestell Bovee
Topics: Eyes
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