American author (1820-1904)
Properly, eccentricity is not so much a component of genius, as it is a consequence of the habits of men of genius. The reputation for genius is usually acquired by severe and protracted intellectual labor. This occasions repeated reactions from an extreme tension to an extreme relaxation of spirits--the transitions expressing themselves in sharp and abrupt impulses.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
We become familiar with the outsides of men, as with the outsides of houses, and think we know them, while we are ignorant of so much that is passing within them.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
It is one of the arts of a great beauty to heighten the effect of her charms by affecting to be sweetly unconscious of them.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
When Fortune frowns upon her worthy wooer, it is still permitted him to think how pleasant it will be erewhile to bask in her smiles.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
What a position of transcendent horror must that be, where the perpetrator of a great crime, till then a stranger to positive guilt, finds himself suddenly cut off, and forever, from all human sympathy, isolated from hope, the tenant of a solitary cell, and with a wide, impassable gulf yawning between him and that great brotherhood of which he has ceased to be a part--no longer regarded as a man, but as a monster in the shape of one, from whom Mercy herself turns away, and for whom Pity even has no tears!
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
Partial culture runs to the ornate; extreme culture to simplicity.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
Competition, which is said to be "the life of trade," when pushed too far, is no less the death of it--and of the soul.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
Dreamers are half-way men of thought, and men of thought are half-way men of action.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
Fortune, like a coy mistress, loves to yield her favors, though she makes us wrest them from her.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
It is indeed a misfortune for a woman to be without beauty, as with men the eye is the chief arbiter of qualities in the sex. Her beauty is her capital--her worth in the market matrimonial depends upon it. With her the Virtues are less reverenced when unaccompanied by the Graces. The sex understand this very well; and hence they seek mainly to make captive the eye, knowing the mind and heart will follow as a matter of course.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
It is invidious to distinguish particular men as adventurers: we are all such.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
We serve the devil in our youth, God in our old age--thinking if we journey towards hell while our limbs are sound, we can turn when they fail us, and get to heaven on crutches.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
We wince under little pains, but nature in us, through the excitement attendant upon them, braces us to endure with fortitude greater agonies.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
A peculiar work in any art must not be too hastily judged. New styles have to create new tastes.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
All greatness in performance rests upon a basis of details. A knowledge of what is general to a subject may suffice for the merely learned man, but a thorough knowledge of details is necessary to form the adept.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
Courage ennobles manhood; cowardice degrades it.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
If one could only tear down his character, as old buildings are torn down, and build it up anew, as these are rebuilt! And so, in effect, it can be. A noble property of character is, that it is susceptible of improvement.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
In art there are two principal schools between which each aspirant has to choose--one distinguished by its close adherence to nature, and the other by its strenuous efforts to get above it.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
Pride is like the beautiful acacia, that lifts its head proudly above its neighbor plants--forgetting that it too, like them, has its roots in the dirt.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
The questions most furiously discussed are those which have in them a basis of truth, and yet a large admixture of errors. We inconsiderately take hold of, and mistakingly support or oppose them, as either wholly true or wholly false.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought