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
A failure establishes only this, that our determination to succeed was not strong enough.
—Christian Nestell Bovee
Topics: Mistakes, Success, Failures, Failure
The small courtesies sweeten life; the greater ennoble it.
—Christian Nestell Bovee
Topics: Courtesy, Manners
The beauty seen, is partly in him who sees it.
—Christian Nestell Bovee
Topics: Beauty
A mother’s love is indeed the golden link that binds youth to age; and he is still but a child, however time may have furrowed his cheek, or silvered his brow, who can yet recall, with a softened heart, the fond devotion, or the gentle chidings, of the best friend that God ever gives us.
—Christian Nestell Bovee
Topics: Mother
Even when we fancy we have grown wiser, it is only, it may be, that new prejudices have displaced old ones.
—Christian Nestell Bovee
Topics: Prejudice
Our first love, and last love is self-love.
—Christian Nestell Bovee
Topics: Love
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
The cheerful live longest in years, and afterwards in our regards. Cheerfulness is the offshoot of goodness.
—Christian Nestell Bovee
Topics: Cheerfulness
The busiest of living agents are certain dead men’s thoughts; they are forever influencing the opinions and destinies of men.
—Christian Nestell Bovee
Topics: Thought, Thinking, Thoughts
Great designs are not accomplished without enthusiasm of some sort.—It is the inspiration of everything great.—Without it no man is to be feared, and with it none despised.
—Christian Nestell Bovee
Topics: Enthusiasm
Heaven lent you a soul Earth will lend a grave.
—Christian Nestell Bovee
Topics: Proverbs, Heaven, Earth
What is taken from the fortune, also, may haply be so much lifted from the soul. The greatness of a loss, as the proverb suggests, is determinable, not so much by what we have lost, as by what we have left.
—Christian Nestell Bovee
Topics: Waste
Wine is a treacherous friend who you must always be on guard for.
—Christian Nestell Bovee
Topics: Alcoholism, Alcohol
Affliction, like the iron-smith, shapes as it smites.
—Christian Nestell Bovee
Topics: Suffering
Few minds wear out; more rust out.
—Christian Nestell Bovee
Topics: Thinking, Mind
The highest virtue found in the tropics is chastity, and in the colder regions, temperance.
—Christian Nestell Bovee
Topics: Virtues, Virtue
Intellectually, as well as politically, the direction of all true progress is toward greater freedom, and along an endless succession of ideas.
—Christian Nestell Bovee
Topics: Progress
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
For cowards the road of desertion should be left open; they will carry over to the enemy nothing, but their fears.
—Christian Nestell Bovee
Topics: Coward, Cowardice
The use we make of our fortune determines as to its sufficiency. A little is enough if used wisely, and too much is not enough if expended foolishly.
—Christian Nestell Bovee
Topics: Fortune, Gratitude, Blessings, Appreciation
Books are embalmed minds.
—Christian Nestell Bovee
Topics: Books
The great obstacle to progress is prejudice.
—Christian Nestell Bovee
Topics: Prejudice, Difficulty, Obstacles
It is only an error of judgment to make a mistake, but it argues an infirmity of character to adhere to it when discovered. The Chinese say, “The glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time you fall.”
—Christian Nestell Bovee
Topics: Change, Mistake, Mistakes, Failures
Bad manners are a species of bad morals; a conscientious man will not offend in that way.
—Christian Nestell Bovee
Topics: Manners
And still again: a character is to be judged by its best performance. It is in this that it attains to its clearest expression; and to this, and beyond this, its aspiration tends.
—Christian Nestell Bovee
Luminous quotations atone, by their interest, for the dullness of an inferior book, and add to the value of a superior work by the variety which they lend to its style and treatment.
—Christian Nestell Bovee
Topics: Quotations
We make way for the man who boldly pushes past us.
—Christian Nestell Bovee
Topics: Perseverance, Boldness, Persistence
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
Melancholy sees the worst of things—things as they might be, and not as they are.—It looks upon a beautiful face, and sees but a grinning skull.
—Christian Nestell Bovee
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
- Cynthia Ozick American Novelist, Essayist
- Helen Gurley Brown American Publisher
- Harry Browne American Author, Economist
- E. L. Doctorow American Novelist
- Emma Lazarus American Poet, Writer
- Susan Sontag American Writer, Philosopher
- Margaret Truman American Author
- Erica Jong American Novelist, Poet
- Ashleigh Brilliant British Cartoonist
- Martial Ancient Roman Latin Poet
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