Christian Nestell Bovee
Christian Nestell Bovee
Christian Nestell Boveewas an epigrammatic New York writer. He was born in New York City...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionAuthor
CountryUnited States of America
men justice desire
A better principle than this, that "the majority shall rule," is this other, that justice shall rule. "Justice," says the code of Justinian, "is the constant and perpetual desire to render every man his due.
knowing evil desire
I desire to go through life knowing as little of evil in it as possible. To this end, I sometimes avoid looking too closely into the nature of things, studying them only so far as they seem to be good, and abandoning interest in them as soon as their darker feature begin to appear. The good only deserves a hearty interest.
desire want natural
The natural wants are few, and easily gratified: it is only those which are artificial that perplex us by their multiplicity.
mean desire pay
When we have the means to pay for what we desire, what we get is not so much what is best, as what is costliest.
nature desire literature
We trifle when we assign limits to our desires, since nature hath set none.
faith however themselves
They are the weakest, however strong, who have no faith in themselves or their own powers.
influence relation circumstances
It is our relation to circumstances that determines their influence upon us.
next faith-in-god labor
Next to faith in God, is faith in labor.
life sugar fancy
Discretion is the salt, and fancy the sugar of life; the one preserves, the other sweetens it.
running opposites quality
Qualities not regulated run into their opposites. Economy before competence is meanness after it. Therefore economy is for the poor; the rich may dispense with it.
witty self able
The next best thing to being witty one's self, is to be able to be able to quote another's wit.
yield mistress favors
Fortune, like a coy mistress, loves to yield her favors, though she makes us wrest them from her.
fate hawks resentment
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.
retirement long doe
It is so natural for us to consider our presence as indispensable in the world, so long as we have much to do in it, that the wisdom of retiring wholly from employments in advanced life may be questioned. Certainly, he who does so is in danger of finding, before long, that he has only given up the occupation to which he has been accustomed, for the new business of calculating the period of his decease.