Quotes from bovee christian nestell iii

We should be sure, when we rebuke a want of charity, to do it with charity.

What we call conscience, in many instances, is only a wholesome fear of the constable.

Perhaps the natural character of a man may be best seen before breakfast. The world is created anew for us every morning, and he is just then reissued, as it were, from the hands of nature, with all his original peculiarities fresh upon him.

The method of the critic is to balance praises with censure, and thus to do justice to the subject and--his own discrimination.

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.

Courage and timidity are the accompaniments of opposite tendencies of thought. The brave think only of the blows they will strike; the timid of those they may receive.

Age, that acquaints us with infirmities in ourselves, should make us tender in our reprehension of weakness elsewhere.

Love of children is the homage of the heart to unsullied purity. Indeed, children are the bright side of life. From our sins and sorrows, how refreshing is it to turn to their artless ways and purer joys! Would that they could all be so educated, as not, in their after-years, to darken life by their offenses!

No work deserves to be criticized that has not much in it that deserves to be applauded.

The small courtesies sweeten life; the greater ennoble it.

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.

Contentment is not happiness. An oyster may be contented. Happiness is compounded of richer elements.

The legitimate aim of criticism is to direct attention to the excellent. The bad will dig its own grave.

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.

In a contest with a weaker party it is more honorable to yield than to force concession. Magnanimity becomes the strong.

Our courage is greater to dare a visible than an imagined danger. A visible danger rouses our energies to meet or avert it; a fancied peril appalls from its presenting nothing to be resisted. Thus, a panic is, usually, a sudden going over to the enemy of our imagination. All is then lost, for we have not only to fight against that enemy, but our imagination as well.

We trifle when we assign limits to our desires, since nature has set none.

Unmerited compliments are the keenest reproaches.

Very handsome women have usually far less sensibility to compliments than their less beautiful sisters.