The great business of the moral teacher is, to make the best moral impressions and excite the best feelings, by giving the clearest, fullest and most accurate instruction as to truth and duty.
—Charles Simmons
Uncalled for excuses are practical confessions.
—Charles Simmons
Topics: Excuses
For the most part fraud in the end secures for its companions repentance and shame.
—Charles Simmons
Meditation is the nurse of thought, and thought the food for meditation.
—Charles Simmons
Topics: Meditation
He that takes time to think and consider will act more wisely than he that acts hastily and on impulse.
—Charles Simmons
To pamper the body is a miserable expression of kindness and courtesy; the most sumptuous repast is “the feast of reason and the flow of soul”—an intellectual and moral treat.
—Charles Simmons
Public opinion, or public sentiment, is able to sustain, or to pull down any law of the commonwealth.
—Charles Simmons
Topics: Public
Sensible men show their sense by saying much in few words.—If noble actions are the substance of life, good sayings are its ornament and guide.
—Charles Simmons
When the heart is won, the undertanding is easily convinced.
—Charles Simmons
Topics: Heart
The smallest number, with God and truth on their side, are weightier than thousands.
—Charles Simmons
Good intentions are very mortal and perishable things; like very mellow and choice fruit they are difficult to keep.
—Charles Simmons
Topics: Intentions
In choosing a wife, a nurse, or a school-teacher, look to the breed.—There is as much blood in men as in horses.
—Charles Simmons
Topics: Marriage
He who feasts every day, feasts no day.
—Charles Simmons
The resource of bigotry and intolerance, when convicted of error, is always the same; silenced by argument, it endeavors to silence by persecution, in old times by fire and sword, in modern days by the tongue.
—Charles Simmons
Topics: Conversation, Speech
Great talkers are like leaky vessels; everything runs out of them.
—Charles Simmons
Topics: Talking
When a person feels disposed to over estimate his own importance, let him remember that mankind got along very well before his birth, and that in all probability they will they will get along very well after his death.
—Charles Simmons
Topics: Self-Esteem
To recreate strength, rest. To recreate mind, repose. To recreate cheerfulness, hope in God, or change the object of attention to one more elevated and worthy of thought.
—Charles Simmons
As to all that we have and are, we are but stewards of the Most High God.—On all our possessions, on our time, and talents, and influence, and property, he has written, “Occupy for me, and till I shall come.”—To obey his instructions and serve him faithfully, is the true test of obedience and discipleship.
—Charles Simmons
Self-approbation, when founded in truth and a good conscience, is a source of some of the purest joys known to man.
—Charles Simmons
Topics: Self-Discovery
Ridicule is the first and last argument of fools.
—Charles Simmons
Topics: Fools
Wickedness, when properly punished, is disgraceful only to the offender; unpunished, it is disgraceful to the whole community.
—Charles Simmons
Topics: Punishment
What Shakespeare says of doubts is equally true of vacillation and uncertainty of purpose, “that they make us lose the good we oft might win by fearing to attempt.”‘
—Charles Simmons
Topics: Uncertainty
A conscience enlightened, and yet a heart erratic, make mankind a bundle of marvelous incongruities and inconsistencies.
—Charles Simmons
I seem, says Hume, “affrighted and confounded with the solitude in which I am placed by my philosophy. When I look abroad, on every side I see dispute, contradiction, distraction. When I turn my eye inward, I find nothing but doubt and ignorance. Where am I? or what am I? From what cause do I derive my existence? To what condition shall I return? I am confounded with questions. I begin to fancy myself in a most deplorable condition, environed with darkness on every side.”—What a confession of the wretchedness of unbelief!
—Charles Simmons
Our thanks should be as fervent for mercies received, as our petitions for mercies sought.
—Charles Simmons
Topics: Gratitude
The weakest spot with mankind is where they fancy themselves most wise.
—Charles Simmons
Topics: Weakness
The failures of life come from resting in good intentions, which are in vain unless carried out in wise action.
—Charles Simmons
Topics: Intentions
There is a noble forgetfulness—that which does not remember injuries.
—Charles Simmons
Gratitude to God should be as habitual as the reception of mercies is constant, as ardent as the number of them is great, as devout as the riches of divine grace and goodness is incomprehensible.
—Charles Simmons
Topics: Gratitude
Never go backward. Attempt, and do it with all your might. Determination is power.
—Charles Simmons
Topics: Trying
A fickle memory is bad; a fickle course of conduct is worse; but a fickle heart and purposes, worst of all.
—Charles Simmons
Those who obtain riches by labor, care, and watching, know their value. Those who impart them to sustain and extend knowledge, virtue, and religion, know their use. Those who lose them by accident or fraud know their vanity. And those who experience the difficulties and dangers of preserving them know their perplexities.
—Charles Simmons
Topics: Wealth, Riches
The oblivions of time will be the reminiscences of eternity.
—Charles Simmons
We are indebted to Christianity for gentleness, especially toward women.
—Charles Simmons
Topics: Gentleness
In the sphere of thought, absurdity and perversity remain the masters of the world, and their dominion is suspended only for brief periods.
—Charles Simmons
Topics: Defects
The secret of successful teaching is to teach accurately, thoroughly, and earnestly; this will impart interest to instructions, and awaken attention to them. All sciences, in their nature or connections, are replete with interest, if teachers properly illustrate and impress their truths in a pleasing, earnest manner.
—Charles Simmons
Topics: Teaching
Blindness of heart beclouds the understanding, conscience, memory, and indeed all the intellectual powers, and throws a mischievous obscurity over theological, moral, and even classical science.
—Charles Simmons
Great men are very apt to have great faults; and the faults appear the greater by their contrast with their excellencies.
—Charles Simmons
Imprint the beauties of authors upon your imagination, and their good morals upon your heart.
—Charles Simmons
Topics: Reading
Who can refute a sneer?—It is independent of proof, reason, argument, or sense, and may as well be used against facts and truth, as against falsehood.
—Charles Simmons
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
Lloyd Alexander American Writer
Toni Morrison American Novelist
Marie Chapian American Christian Writer
Brenda Ueland American Journalist Memoirist
Hamilton Wright Mabie American Essayist, Editor
Philip Wylie American Dramatist
Leo Buscaglia American Motivational Speaker
Max De Pree American Businessman
Thaddeus Golas American New Age Writer
Charlie Munger American Investor, Philanthropist