Christian Nestell Bovee Quotes

Loss of sincerity is loss of vital power.

He has but one great fear that fears to do wrong.

The great obstacle to progress is prejudice.

"There is nothing," says a correspondent of the New York Times, "which the business world discards as unpractical and useless so much as the quiet, thinking scholar. But this is the man who makes revolutions. Politicians are mere puppets in the hands of men of thought.

There is, indeed, no wild beast more to be dreaded than a communicative man having nothing to communicate.

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.

A book should be luminous but not voluminous.

The first step toward greatness is to be honest, says the proverb; but the proverb fails to state the case strong enough. Honesty is not only "the first step toward greatness," — it is greatness itself.

There is probably no hell for authors in the next world — they suffer so much from critics and publishers in this.

Formerly when great fortunes were only made in war, war was a business; but now, when great fortunes are only made by business, business is war.

The scope of an intellect is not to be measured with a tape-string, or a character deciphered from the shape or length of a nose.

The light in the world comes principally from two sources,—the sun, and the student's lamp.

At all events, the next best thing to being witty one's self, is to be able to quote another's wit.

No man is happy without a delusion of some kind. Delusions are as necessary to our happiness as realities.

Loose ideas on the subject of business will not answer. It must be reduced to something of a science. It has its principles, upon a knowledge and an application of which, success in it mainly depends.