American author (1820-1904)
To cultivate a garden is to walk with God.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
Kindness: A language which the dumb can speak, and the deaf can understand.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
It is only an error of judgment to make a mistake, but it argues an infirmity of character to adhere to it when discovered.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
None but those who have loved can be supposed to understand the oratory of the eye, the mute eloquence of a look, or the conversational powers of the face. Love's sweetest meanings are unspoken; the full heart knows no rhetoric of words, and resorts to the pantomime of sighs and glances.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
Life is indeed either a rich possession or a poor, according as it is made subservient to noble aims or ignoble pleasures.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
The thing most prejudicial to health is to be always thinking of it. It is, indeed, an indispensable requisite to the enjoyment of life and health, that little attention should be paid to little symptoms. One should not think himself dead until he is so.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
The business of the historian is with the truth of things, but he is too much under temptation to make his history interesting, to be always able to reject a fine story.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
One must have been, at some time or other, in a situation where a small sum was as necessary almost as life itself, with no more ability to raise it than to raise the dead, before he can fully appreciate the value of money.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
Out of politics comes more uproar than progress. It is indeed surprising how little, comparatively, this noisy department of human affairs contributes to the world's prosperity. Political commotions upon the grandest scale, political events of astounding suddenness, political characters of the greatest ability, abound, but still, permanent results are rare, and we look in vain for a measure of public good corresponding in extent to the hideous rout which ushers it in. Progress but turns upon its pillow, and goes to sleep again.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
For every great evil, apparently irremediable, there is reserved, it is probable, somewhere in the design of Providence, an effectual remedy.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
Hatreds are the chimneys of the mind, serving to carry off the smoke of its pestilent humors.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
Our ideas ... must first acquire a certain strength, before we can proceed efficiently to act upon them. They have their periods of immaturity and maturity. First comes the germ of the idea; then its growth; then an enlargement of that growth; then an expansion of that enlargement; until finally the idea takes its ultimate form as a picture, a book, or a revolution.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
We absolve a friend from gratitude when we remind him of a favor.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
Elements of the heroic exist in almost every individual: it is only the felicitous development of them all in one that is rare.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
The ideas of things precede and lead to their creation.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
It is not the number of facts he knows, but how much of a fact he is himself, that proves the man.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
Perhaps the heroic element in our natures is exhibited to the best advantage, not in going from success to success, and so on through a series of triumphs, but in gathering, on the very field of defeat itself, the materials for renewed efforts, and in proceeding, with no abatement of heart or energy, to form fresh designs upon the very ruins and ashes of blasted hopes. Yes, it is this indomitable persistence in a purpose, continued alike through defeat and success, that makes, more than aught else, the hero.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
The language denotes the man. A coarse or refined character finds its expression naturally in a coarse or refined phraseology.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
There are seasons when our passions have slept so long that we know not whether they still exist in us. So does flax forget that it is combustible when the fire is away from it.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
Who aspires to remain leader must keep in advance of his column. His fear must not play traitor to his occasions. The instant he falls into line with his followers, a bolder spirit may throw himself at the head of the movement initiated, and in that moment his leadership is gone.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought