Martin Farquhar Tupper (1810–89) was a prolific British verse and prose writer. Tupper is best known for his Proverbial Philosophy (1838–76, four series,) which consists of adages, maxims, and didactic lectures presented in loosely lyrical form. It was a bestseller in Britain and America for 30 years but then became the subject of many clever—and malicious—parodies. Tupper also published the novels The Crock of Gold (1844,) Stephan Langton (1858,) and other written works.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Martin Farquhar Tupper
He who commits a wrong will himself inevitably see the writing on the wall, though the world may not count him guilty.
—Martin Farquhar Tupper
Topics: Conscience
Reflection is a flower of the mind, giving out wholesome fragrance; but revery is the same flower, when rank and running to seed.
—Martin Farquhar Tupper
Topics: Reflection
Ridicule is a weak weapon when leveled at strong minds, but common men are cowards and dread an empty laugh.
—Martin Farquhar Tupper
Ideas, though vivid and real, are often indefinite, and are shy of the close furniture of words.
—Martin Farquhar Tupper
Topics: Ideas
A good book is the best of friends, the same today and forever.
—Martin Farquhar Tupper
Topics: Books, Reading
To despond is to be ungrateful beforehand.—Be not looking for evil.—Often thou drainest the gall of fear while evil is passing by thy dwelling.
—Martin Farquhar Tupper
Topics: Anticipation
Error is a hardy plant; it flourishes in every soil.
—Martin Farquhar Tupper
Topics: Mistakes
The choicest pleasures of life lie within the ring of moderation.
—Martin Farquhar Tupper
Topics: Moderation
Know thyself, thine evil as well as thy good, and flattery shall not harm thee; her speech shall be a warning, a humbling, and a guide; for wherein thou lackest most, there chiefly will thy sycophant commend thee.
—Martin Farquhar Tupper
Topics: Flattery
Deep is the sea, and deep is hell, but pride mineth deeper; it is coiled as a poisonous worm about the foundations of the soul.
—Martin Farquhar Tupper
Topics: Pride
Be understood in thy teaching, and instruct to the measure of capacity.—Precepts and rules are repulsive to a child, but happy illustration wins him.
—Martin Farquhar Tupper
Topics: Teaching
Anger is a noble infirmity; the generous failing of the just; the one degree that riseth above zeal, asserting the prerogative of virtue.
—Martin Farquhar Tupper
Topics: Anger, Zeal
Prayer is the slender nerve that moves the muscle of omnipotence.
—Martin Farquhar Tupper
Topics: Prayer
I have sped much by land, and sea, and mingled with much people, but never yet could find a spot unsunned by human kindness.
—Martin Farquhar Tupper
Topics: Kindness
A babe in the house is a well-spring of pleasure, a messenger of peace and love, a resting place for innocence on earth, a link between angels and men.
—Martin Farquhar Tupper
Pain adds rest unto pleasure, and teaches the luxury of health.
—Martin Farquhar Tupper
Topics: Luxury, Pain
Planets do not govern the soul, or guide the destinies of men, but trifles, lighter than straws, are levers in the building up of character.
—Martin Farquhar Tupper
Topics: Influence
Learn God, and thou shalt know thyself.
—Martin Farquhar Tupper
Topics: Self-Knowledge
Betray mean terror of ridicule, thou shalt find fools enough to mock thee; but answer thou their language with contempt, and the scoffers will lick thy feet.
—Martin Farquhar Tupper
Love is the weapon which Omnipotence reserved to conquer rebel man when all the rest had failed. Reason he parries; fear he answers blow for blow; future interest he meets with present pleasure; but love is that sun against whose melting beams the winter cannot stand. There is not one human being in a million, nor a thousand men in all earth’s huge quintiilion whose clay heart is hardened against love.
—Martin Farquhar Tupper
Topics: Love
Memory is not wisdom; idiots can by rote repeat volumes.—Yet what is wisdom without memory?
—Martin Farquhar Tupper
Topics: Memory
Well-timed silence hath more eloquence than speech.
—Martin Farquhar Tupper
Topics: Time
Memory, the daughter of attention, is the teeming mother of knowledge.
—Martin Farquhar Tupper
Topics: Memory
There is nothing so true that the damps of error have not warped it.
—Martin Farquhar Tupper
Humility mainly becometh the converse of man with his Maker.
—Martin Farquhar Tupper
Topics: Humility
Despise not small things, either for evil or good, for a look may work thy ruin, or a word create thy wealth.—A spark is a little thing, yet it may kindle the world.
—Martin Farquhar Tupper
There is no error so crooked but it hath in it some lines of truth, nor is any poison so deadly that it serveth not some wholesome use.—Spurn not a seeming error, but dig below its surface for the truth.
—Martin Farquhar Tupper
Mind is not as merchandise which decreaseth in the using, but like to the passions of men, which rejoice and expand in exertion.
—Martin Farquhar Tupper
Topics: Mind
The mines of knowledge are often laid bare by the hazel-wand of chance.
—Martin Farquhar Tupper
Topics: Chance
Wealth hath never given happiness, but often hastened misery; enough hath never caused misery, but often quickened happiness.
—Martin Farquhar Tupper
Topics: Wealth
Many a beggar at the crossway, or gray-haired shepherd on the plain, hath more of the end of all wealth than hundreds who multiply the means.
—Martin Farquhar Tupper
Topics: Wealth
A man that speaks too much, and museth but little, wasteth his mind in words, and is counted a fool among men.
—Martin Farquhar Tupper
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