Prayer is the slender nerve that moves the muscle of omnipotence.
—Martin Farquhar Tupper
Topics: Prayer
The choicest pleasures of life lie within the ring of moderation.
—Martin Farquhar Tupper
Topics: Moderation
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
Memory is not wisdom; idiots can by rote repeat volumes.—Yet what is wisdom without memory?
—Martin Farquhar Tupper
Topics: Memory
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
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
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 good book is the best of friends, the same today and forever.
—Martin Farquhar Tupper
Topics: Books, Reading
Learn God, and thou shalt know thyself.
—Martin Farquhar Tupper
Topics: Self-Knowledge
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
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
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
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
Humility mainly becometh the converse of man with his Maker.
—Martin Farquhar Tupper
Topics: Humility
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
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
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
There is nothing so true that the damps of error have not warped it.
—Martin Farquhar Tupper
The mines of knowledge are often laid bare by the hazel-wand of chance.
—Martin Farquhar Tupper
Topics: Chance
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
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
Error is a hardy plant; it flourishes in every soil.
—Martin Farquhar Tupper
Topics: Mistakes
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
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
Well-timed silence hath more eloquence than speech.
—Martin Farquhar Tupper
Topics: Time
Wealth hath never given happiness, but often hastened misery; enough hath never caused misery, but often quickened happiness.
—Martin Farquhar Tupper
Topics: Wealth
Pain adds rest unto pleasure, and teaches the luxury of health.
—Martin Farquhar Tupper
Topics: Pain, Luxury
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
Memory, the daughter of attention, is the teeming mother of knowledge.
—Martin Farquhar Tupper
Topics: Memory
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
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
- Hartley Coleridge British Poet
- Lady Mary Wortley Montagu English Aristocrat, Poet
- Francis Thompson English Poet
- Edmund Spenser English Poet
- Philip James Bailey English Poet
- Philip Larkin English Poet
- Percy Bysshe Shelley English Poet
- Anne Bradstreet American Poet
- Edwin Arnold English Poet
- John Webster English Dramatist
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