CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE QUOTES X

American author (1820-1904)

Wit is better as a seasoning than as a whole dish by itself.

CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE

Intuitions and Summaries of Thought


In the assurance of strength there is strength, and they are the weakest, however strong, who have no faith in themselves or their powers.

CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE

Intuitions and Summaries of Thought


At present society is composed, not so much of men and women, as of the raw material of men and women, which it will be the office of a higher civilization to work up into the forms of a truer manhood and womanhood.

CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE

Intuitions and Summaries of Thought


We take life too seriously: the office of wit is to correct this tendency.

CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE

Intuitions and Summaries of Thought


Resentments, carried too far, expose us to a fate analogous to that of the fish-hawk, when he strikes his talons too deep into a fish beyond his capacity to lift, and is carried under and drowned by it.

CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE

Intuitions and Summaries of Thought


If our existence is limited only to this world, religion is still of the greatest consequence, as more largely determining character, and more vastly influencing happiness, than any other single cause; and if it extends to a life beyond, it is of incalculably greater importance, as determining character and influencing happiness through illimitable periods of time. Indeed, without a belief in the being of God, without a recognition of his infinite power, wisdom, and goodness, and without faith in a divine system of rewards and punishments, wrought into the constitution of things, life is at once stripped of its majesty, and bereaved of its noblest promises.

CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE

Intuitions and Summaries of Thought


The body of a sensualist is the coffin of a dead soul.

CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE

Intuitions and Summaries of Thought


Mind unemployed is mind unenjoyed.

CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE

Intuitions and Summaries of Thought


Better freedom with a crust, than slavery with every luxury.

CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE

Intuitions and Summaries of Thought

Tags: freedom


Silence, when nothing need be said, is the eloquence of discretion.

CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE

Intuitions and Summaries of Thought


Haste turns usually upon a matter of ten minutes too late, and may be avoided by a habit of being ten minutes too early.

CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE

Intuitions and Summaries of Thought


To vindicate the sanctity of human life by taking it is an outrage upon reason. The spectacle of a human being dangling at the end of a gallows-rope is a degradation of humanity.

CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE

Intuitions and Summaries of Thought


New situations inspire new thoughts. Here is the benefit of travelling, much more than in mere sight-seeing. We lose ourselves in the streets of our own city, and go abroad to find ourselves.

CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE

Intuitions and Summaries of Thought


The poet's is the highest type of character: other men dwell in the conventional--he chiefly abides in the universal.

CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE

Intuitions and Summaries of Thought


All good writing leaves something unexpressed.

CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE

Intuitions and Summaries of Thought


In general, inquiry ceases when we adopt a theory. After that, we overlook whatever makes against it, and see and think, and talk and write, only in its favor. Indeed, when we have a snug, comfortable theory, to which we are much attached, they appear to us as a very mean set of facts that will not square with it.

CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE

Intuitions and Summaries of Thought


Words, like cannon balls, should go direct to their mark.

CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE

Intuitions and Summaries of Thought


We sheathe the sword of speech when we put it into conventional forms.

CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE

Intuitions and Summaries of Thought


Wit, like poetry, is insusceptible of being constructed upon rules founded merely in reason. Like faith, it exists independent of reason, and sometimes in hostility to it.

CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE

Intuitions and Summaries of Thought


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

Intuitions and Summaries of Thought