Alexander Smith Quotes - Page 3

Quotes about:

• The great man is the man who does a thing for the first time.

  Alexander Smith

  Men, Doe, Firsts

  "Dreamthorp".

  6 Copy quote

• Style, after all, rather than thought, is the immortal thing in literature.

  Alexander Smith

  Style, Literature, Immortal

  Alexander Smith (1863). “Dreamthorp: A Book of Essays Written in the Country”, p.43

  7 Copy quote

• The globe has been circumnavigated, but no man ever yet has; you may survey a kingdom and note the result in maps, but all the savants in the world could not produce a reliable map of the poorest human personality.

  Alexander Smith

  Men, Personality, World

  Alexander Smith (1863). “Dreamthorp: A Book of Essays Written in the Country”, p.170

  5 Copy quote

• The greatness of an artist or a writer does not depend on what he has in common with other artists and writers, but on what he has peculiar to himself.

  Alexander Smith

  Artist, Greatness, Individuality

  Alexander Smith (1914). “Dreamthorp”

  7 Copy quote

• If you do your fair day's work, you are certain to get your fair day's wage - in praise or pudding, whichever happens to suit your taste.

  Alexander Smith

  Reality, Pudding, Taste

  Alexander Smith (1863). “Dreamthorp: A Book of Essays Written in the Country”, p.176

  26 Copy quote

• Vanity in its idler moments is benevolent, is as willing to give pleasure as to take it, and accepts as sufficient reward for its services a kind word or an approving smile.

  Alexander Smith

  Vanity, Giving, Idlers

  Alexander Smith (1863). “Dreamthorp: A Book of Essays Written in the Country”, p.181

  53 Copy quote

• Yet through all, we know this tangled skein is in the hands of One, Who sees the end from the beginning: He shall unravel all.

  Alexander Smith

  Karma, Hands, Tangled

  Alexander Smith (1857). “City Poems”, p.48

  4 Copy quote

• My heart like moon-charmed waters, all unrest.

  Alexander Smith

  Heart, Moon, Water

  Alexander Smith (1858). “A Life-drama, and Other Poems”, p.104

  4 Copy quote

• In life there is nothing more unexpected and surprising than the arrivals and departures of pleasure. If we find it in one place today, it is vain to seek it there tomorrow. You can not lay a trap for it.

  Alexander Smith

  Today, Departure, Tomorrow

  7 Copy quote

• My garden, with its silence and pulses of fragrance that come and go on the airy undulations, affects me like sweet music. Care stops at the gates, and gazes at me wistfully through the bars.

  Alexander Smith

  Sweet, Nature, Garden

  Alexander Smith (2012). “Dreamthorp A Book of Essays Written in the Country”, p.223, tredition

  4 Copy quote

• In my garden I spend my days; in my library I spend my nights.

  Alexander Smith

  Book, Night, Garden

  Alexander Smith (2012). “Dreamthorp A Book of Essays Written in the Country”, p.221, tredition

  5 Copy quote

• The dead keep their secrets, and in a while we shall be as wise as they - and as taciturn.

  Alexander Smith

  Wise, Keeping Secrets, Secret

  Alexander Smith (1863). “Dreamthorp: A Book of Essays Written in the Country”, p.65

  23 Copy quote

• In winter, when the dismal rain
  Comes down in slanting lines,
  And Wind, that grand old harper, smote
  His thunder-harp of pines.

  Alexander Smith

  Rain, Winter, Wind

  Alexander Smith (1858). “A Life-drama, and Other Poems”, p.20

  9 Copy quote

• A poem round and perfect as a star.

  Alexander Smith

  Stars, Perfect, Poetry

  alexander smith (1853). “poems”, p.33

  4 Copy quote

• There is no ghost so difficult to lay as the ghost of an injury.

  Alexander Smith

  Ghost, Injury, Difficult

  Alexander Smith (1865). “Alfred Hagart's Household”, p.132

  10 Copy quote

• If you wish to make a man look noble, your best course is to kill him. What superiority he may have inherited from his race, what superiority nature may have personally gifted him with, comes out in death.

  Alexander Smith

  Death, Men, Race

  Alexander Smith (1863). “Dreamthorp: A Book of Essays Written in the Country”, p.58

  7 Copy quote

• Sweet April's tears, Dead on the hem of May.

  Alexander Smith

  Sweet, Tears, Hem

  alexander smith (1853). “poems”, p.112

  7 Copy quote

• My friend is not perfect-no more than I am-and so we suit each other admirable.

  Alexander Smith

  Friendship, Perfect, Suits

  4 Copy quote

• A tender sadness drops upon my soul, like the soft twilight dropping on the world.

  Alexander Smith

  Twilight, Sadness, Soul

  alexander smith (1853). “poems”, p.96

  4 Copy quote

• The discovery of a grey hair when you are brushing out your whiskers of a morning—first fallen flake of the coming snows of age—is a disagreeable thing.... So are flying twinges of gout, shortness of breath on the hill-side, the fact that even the moderate use of your friend's wines at dinner upsets you. These things are disagreeable because they tell you that you are no longer young—that you have passed through youth, are now in middle age, and faring onward to the shadows in which, somewhere, a grave is hid.

  Alexander Smith

  Morning, Wine, Hair

  5 Copy quote

• And in any case, to the old man, when the world becomes trite, the triteness arises not so much from a cessation as from a transference of interest. What is taken from this world is given to the next. The glory is in the east in the morning, it is in the west in the afternoon, and when it is dark the splendour is irradiating the realm of the under-world. He would only follow.

  Alexander Smith

  Morning, Taken, Dark

  Alexander Smith (1914). “Dreamthorp”

  4 Copy quote

• Men and women make their own beauty or their own ugliness. Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton speaks in one of his novels of a man "who was uglier than he had any business to be;" and, if we could but read it, every human being carries his life in his face, and is good-looking or the reverse as that life has been good or evil. On our features the fine chisels of thought and emotion are eternally at work.

  Alexander Smith

  Beauty, Men, Evil

  Alexander Smith (1914). “Dreamthorp”

  4 Copy quote

• The discovery of a grey hair when you are brushing out your whiskers of a morning - first fallen flake of the coming snows of age - is a disagreeable thing.

  Alexander Smith

  Morning, Hair, Discovery

  Alexander Smith (1914). “Dreamthorp”

  4 Copy quote

• Not on the stage alone, in the world also, a man's real character comes out best in his asides.

  Alexander Smith

  Real, Character, Men

  Alexander Smith (1863). “Dreamthorp: A Book of Essays Written in the Country”, p.92

  4 Copy quote

• Death, which we are accustomed to consider an evil, really acts for us the friendliest part, and takes away the commonplace of existence.

  Alexander Smith

  Death, Life Death, Commonplace

  "Dreamthorp: A Book of Essays Written in the Country".

  4 Copy quote

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