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
book writing distinction
If it is a distinction to have written a good book, it is also a disgrace to have written a bad one.
excellence distinction pursuit
The highest excellence is seldom attained in more than one vocation. The roads leading to distinction in separate pursuits diverge, and the nearer we approach the one, the farther we recede from the other.
beauty laughing distinction
Beauty can afford to laugh at distinctions: it is itself the greatest distinction.
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.
evil abuse satire
Satire is an abuse of wit. It corrects few evils.
luxury slavery
Better freedom with a crust, than slavery with every luxury.