A failure establishes only this, that our determination to succeed was not strong enough.
– Christian Nestell Bovee
A sound discretion is not so much indicated by never making a mistake as by never repeating it.
– Christian Nestell Bovee
Affliction, like the iron-smith, shapes as it smites.
– Christian Nestell Bovee
As threshing separates the wheat from the chaff, so does affliction purify virtue.
– Christian Nestell Bovee
Beauty can't amuse you, but brainwork - reading, writing, thinking-can.
– Christian Nestell Bovee
Courage enlarges, cowardice diminishes resources. In desperate straits the fears of the timid aggravate the dangers that imperil the brave.
– Christian Nestell Bovee
Doubt whom you will, but never yourself.
– Christian Nestell Bovee
Earth took her shining station as a star, In Heaven's dark hall, high up the crowd of worlds.
– Christian Nestell Bovee
Enthusiasm is the inspiration of everything great. Without it no man is to be feared, and with it none despised.
– Christian Nestell Bovee
Example has more followers than reason. We unconsciously imitate what pleases us, and approximate to the characters we most admire.
– Christian Nestell Bovee
False friends are like our shadow, keeping close to us while we walk in the sunshine, but leaving us the instant we cross into the shade.
– Christian Nestell Bovee
Fame - a few words upon a tombstone, and the truth of those not to be depended on.
– Christian Nestell Bovee
Genius makes its observations in short-hand; talent writes them out at length.
– Christian Nestell Bovee
Good men have the fewest fears. He has but one great fear who fears to do wrong; he has a thousand who has overcome it.
– Christian Nestell Bovee
Heaven lent you a soul Earth will lend a grave.
– Christian Nestell Bovee
In ambition, as in love, the successful can afford to be indulgent toward their rivals. The prize our own, it is graceful to recognize the merit that vainly aspired to it.
– Christian Nestell Bovee
In politics, merit is rewarded by the possessor being raised, like a target, to a position to be fired at.
– Christian Nestell Bovee
It is ever the invisible that is the object of our profoundest worship. With the lover it is not the seen but the unseen that he muses upon.
– Christian Nestell Bovee
It is the passion that is in a kiss that gives to it its sweetness; it is the affection in a kiss that sanctifies it.
– Christian Nestell Bovee
Living with a saint is more grueling than being one.
– Christian Nestell Bovee
Many children, many cares; no children, no felicity.
– Christian Nestell Bovee
Mind unemployed is mind unenjoyed.
– Christian Nestell Bovee
Music is the fourth great material want, first food, then clothes, then shelter, then music.
– Christian Nestell Bovee
Next to being witty yourself, the best thing is being able to quote another's wit.
– Christian Nestell Bovee
No man is happy without a delusion of some kind. Delusions are as necessary to our happiness as realities.
– Christian Nestell Bovee
Our first and last love is self-love.
– Christian Nestell Bovee
Panic is a sudden desertion of us, and a going over to the enemy of our imagination.
– Christian Nestell Bovee
Partial culture runs to the ornate, extreme culture to simplicity.
– Christian Nestell Bovee
Sensitiveness is closely allied to egotism; and excessive sensibility is only another name for morbid self-consciousness. The cure for tender sensibilities is to make more of our objects and less of our selves.
– Christian Nestell Bovee
Tearless grief bleeds inwardly.
– Christian Nestell Bovee
Tears are nature's lotion for the eyes. The eyes see better for being washed by them.
– Christian Nestell Bovee
The body of a sensualist is the coffin of a dead soul.
– Christian Nestell Bovee
The Breath becomes a stone; the stone, a plant; the plant, an animal; the animal, a man; the man, a spirit; and the spirit, a god.
– Christian Nestell Bovee
The grandest of all laws is the law of progressive development. Under it, in the wide sweep of things, men grow wiser as they grow older, and societies better.
– Christian Nestell Bovee
The great artist is a slave to his ideals.
– Christian Nestell Bovee
The method of the enterprising is to plan with audacity and execute with vigor.
– Christian Nestell Bovee
The passions are like fire, useful in a thousand ways and dangerous only in one, through their excess.
– Christian Nestell Bovee
The small courtesies sweeten life; the greater ennoble it.
– Christian Nestell Bovee
There is great beauty in going through life without anxiety or fear. Half our fears are baseless, and the other half discreditable.
– Christian Nestell Bovee
They are the weakest, however strong, who have no faith in themselves or their own powers.
– Christian Nestell Bovee
Tranquil pleasures last the longest; we are not fitted to bear the burden of great joys.
– Christian Nestell Bovee
We fear things in proportion to our ignorance of them.
– Christian Nestell Bovee
We make way for the man who boldly pushes past us.
– Christian Nestell Bovee
We trifle when we assign limits to our desires, since nature hath set none.
– Christian Nestell Bovee
Wine is a treacherous friend who you must always be on guard for.
