American author (1820-1904)
Too much society makes a man frivolous; too little, a savage.
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
Wit is better as a seasoning than as a whole dish by itself.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
In politics, merit is rewarded by the possessor being raised, like a target, to a position to be fired at.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
Ah, my friends, Love, like a froward boy, with his hands full of sugar-plums, still cries for more.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
Next to God we are indebted to women, first for life itself, and then for making it worth having.
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
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
Silence, when nothing need be said, is the eloquence of discretion.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
Satire is an abuse of wit. It corrects few evils.
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
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
Words, like cannon balls, should go direct to their mark.
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
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
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
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
We sheathe the sword of speech when we put it into conventional forms.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
Truth, like the sun, submits to be obscured, but, like the sun, only for a time.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought