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
Love is but another name for that inscrutable presence by which the soul is connected with humanity.
—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
The temperate are the most truly luxurious. By abstaining from most things, it is surprising how many things we enjoy.
—William Gilmore Simms
Our distinctions do not lie in the places we occupy, but in the grace and dignity with which we fill them.
—William Gilmore Simms
The proverb answers where the sermon fails, as a well-charged pistol will do more execution than a whole barrel of gunpowder idly exploded in the air.
—William Gilmore Simms
Topics: Quotations
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: Critics, Criticism
Vanity may be likened to the smooth-skinned and velvet-footed mouse, nibbling about forever in expectation of a crumb; while self-esteem is too apt to take the likeness of the huge butcher’s dog, who carries off your steaks, and growls at you as he goes.
—William Gilmore Simms
Topics: Vanity
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, Mind, Usefullness
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
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
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
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
Tears are the natural penalties of pleasure. It is a law that we should pay for all that we enjoy.
—William Gilmore Simms
Topics: Crying, Tears
Tact is one of the first mental virtues, the absence of which is often fatal to the best of talents; it supplies the place of many talents.
—William Gilmore Simms
Topics: Tact
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
This is the one quality, over all others, necessary to make a gentleman.
—William Gilmore Simms
Topics: Politeness
The only true source of politeness is consideration.
—William Gilmore Simms
Topics: Manners
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
Our true acquisitions lie only in our charities, we gain only as we give.
—William Gilmore Simms
Topics: Charity
Revelation may not need the help of reason, but man does, even when in possession of revelation. Reason is the candle in the man’s hand which enables him to see what revelation is.
—William Gilmore Simms
Topics: Reason
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
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
The only rational liberty is that which is born of subjection, reared in the fear of God and love of man, and roads courageous in the defense of a trust, and the prosecution of a duty.
—William Gilmore Simms
Topics: Liberty
No errors of opinion can possibly be dangerous in a country where opinion is left free to grapple with them.
—William Gilmore Simms
Topics: Opinion, Opinions
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
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
Justice is the great and simple principle which is the secret of success in all government, as essential to the training of an infant, as to the control of a mighty nation.
—William Gilmore Simms
Topics: Justice
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
Genius may be described as the spirit of discovery.—It is the eye of intellect, and the wing of thought.—It is always in advance of its time—the pioneer for the generation which it precedes.
—William Gilmore Simms
Topics: Genius
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