Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotes by William Gilmore Simms (American Novelist)

William Gilmore Simms (1806–70) was an American poet, historian, novelist, and editor. The dominant literary personality of the antebellum South, he is remembered chiefly for his novels on subjects derived from American history. He also served in the South Carolina House of Representatives 1844–46.

Born in Charleston, West Virginia, Simms edited the City Gazette there and published poetry, including Lyrical and Other Poems (1827,) The Vision of Cortes (1829,) The Tricolor (1830,) and Atalantis (1832.) His History of South Carolina (1842) was the authoritative textbook on state history for much of the 20th century. He also wrote the biographies The Life of Francis Marion (1844) and The Life of Chevalier Bayard (1847.) His literary criticism is Views and Reviews of American Literature (1845.)

Simms’s best book, The Yemassee (1835,) is a compassionate account of Native Americans, a topic he returned to in the short stories gathered in The Wigwam and the Cabin (1845–46) and The Cassique of Kiawah (1859.) Despite his liberal sympathies, he was an apologist for slavery and the South.

Edd Winfield Parks wrote the assessment William Gilmore Simms as Literary Critic (1962.)

More: Wikipedia READ: Works by William Gilmore Simms

The conditions of conquest are always easy. We have but to toil awhile, endure awhile, believe always, and never turn back.
William Gilmore Simms
Topics: Success, Secrets of Success, Perseverance

Have I done anything for society? I have then done more for myself. Let that truth be always present to thy mind, and work without cessation.
William Gilmore Simms
Topics: Truth, Usefullness, Mind

There is no doubt such a thing as chance; but I see no reason why Providence should not make use of it.
William Gilmore Simms
Topics: Chance

Tears are the natural penalties of pleasure. It is a law that we should pay for all that we enjoy.
William Gilmore Simms
Topics: Tears, Crying

He who would acquire fame must not show himself afraid of censure. The dread of censure is the death of genius.
William Gilmore Simms
Topics: Censorship, Fame

We must not calculate on the weather, or on fortune, but upon God and ourselves.—He may fail us in the gratification of our wishes, but never in the encounter with our exigencies.
William Gilmore Simms
Topics: Self-reliance

To make punishments efficacious, two things are necessary; they must never be disproportioned to the offence, and they must be certain.
William Gilmore Simms
Topics: Punishment

The true law of the race is progress and development. Whenever civilization pauses in the march of conquest, it is overthrown by the barbarian.
William Gilmore Simms
Topics: Progress

Our cares are the mothers not only of our charities and virtues, but of our best joys, and most cheering and enduring pleasures.
William Gilmore Simms

To feel oppressed by obligation is only to prove that we are incapable of a proper sentiment of gratitude.—To receive favors from the unworthy is to admit that our selfishness is superior to our pride.
William Gilmore Simms
Topics: Obligation

The vulgar mind fancies that good judgment is implied chiefly in the capacity to censure; and yet there is no judgment so exquisite as that which knows property how to approve.
William Gilmore Simms
Topics: Judgment

Stagnation is something worse than death: it is corruption also.
William Gilmore Simms
Topics: Procrastination, Getting Going, Inaction, Idleness

No doubt solitude is wholesome, but so is abstinence after a surfeit.—The true life of man is in society.
William Gilmore Simms
Topics: Solitude

It is said that he or she who admits the possession of a secret, has already half revealed it.—It is a great deal gained toward the acquisition of a treasure, to know exactly where it is.
William Gilmore Simms
Topics: Secrecy

The temperate are the most truly luxurious. By abstaining from most things, it is surprising how many things we enjoy.
William Gilmore Simms

The guilt that feels not its own shame is wholly incurable.—It was the redeeming promise in the fault of Adam, that with the commission of his crime came the sense of his nakedness.
William Gilmore Simms
Topics: Guilt

Our distinctions do not lie in the places we occupy, but in the grace and dignity with which we fill them.
William Gilmore Simms

A people never fairly begins to prosper till necessity is treading on its heels. The growing want of room is one of the sources of civilization. Population is power, but it must be a population that, in growing, is made daily apprehensive of the morrow.
William Gilmore Simms
Topics: Necessity

Neither praise or blame is the object of true criticism. Justly to discriminate, firmly to establish, wisely to prescribe, and honestly to award. These are the true aims and duties of criticism.
William Gilmore Simms
Topics: Criticism, Critics

This is the one quality, over all others, necessary to make a gentleman.
William Gilmore Simms
Topics: Politeness

What we call vice in our neighbor may be nothing less than a crude virtue. To him who knows nothing more of precious stones than he can learn from a daily contemplation of his breastpin, a diamond in the mine must be a very uncompromising sort of stone.
William Gilmore Simms
Topics: Vice

Our true acquisitions lie only in our charities, we gain only as we give.
William Gilmore Simms
Topics: Charity

The only true source of politeness is consideration.
William Gilmore Simms
Topics: Manners

Most men remember obligations, but not often to be grateful; the proud are made sour by the remembrance and the vain silent.
William Gilmore Simms
Topics: Obligation

To be amiable is most certainly a duty, but it is not to be exercised at the expense of any virtue.—He who seeks to do the amiable always, can at times be successful only by the sacrifice of his manhood.
William Gilmore Simms

Strong passions are the life of manly virtues. But they need not necessarily be evil because they are passions, and because they are strong. They may be likened to blood horses, that need training and the curb only, to enable those whom they carry to achieve the most glorious triumphs.
William Gilmore Simms
Topics: Passion

Pleasure is one of those commodities which are sold at a thousand shops, and bought by a thousand customers, but of which nobody ever fairly finds possession. Either they know not well how to use, or the commodity will not keep, for no one has ever yet appeared to be satisfied with his bargain. It is too subtle for transition, though sufficiently solid for sale.
William Gilmore Simms
Topics: Pleasure

Love is but another name for that inscrutable presence by which the soul is connected with humanity.
William Gilmore Simms

To confide, even though to be betrayed, is much better than to learn only to conceal.—In the one case your neighbor wrongs you;—but in the other you are perpetually doing injustice to yourself.
William Gilmore Simms
Topics: Confidence

No errors of opinion can possibly be dangerous in a country where opinion is left free to grapple with them.
William Gilmore Simms
Topics: Opinions, Opinion

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