William Gilmore Simms Quotes

Most men remember obligations, but not often to be grateful; the proud are made sour by the remembrance, and the vain silent.

The birth of a child is the imprisonment of a soul. The soul must work its way out of prison, and, in doing so, provide itself with wings for a future journey. It is for each of us to determine whether our wings shall be those of an angel or a grub!

The effect of character is always to command consideration. We sport and toy and laugh with men or women who have none, but we never confide in them.

The amiable is a duty most certainly, but must not be exercised at the expense of any of the virtues. He who seeks to do the amiable always, can only be successful at the frequent expense of his manhood.

The only rational liberty is that which is born of subjection, reared in the fear of God and the love of man.

Neither praise nor blame is the object of true criticism. Justly to discriminate, firmly to establish, wisely to prescribe and honestly to award — these are the true aims and duties of criticism.

The wonder is not that the world is so easily governed, but that so small a number of persons will suffice for the purpose. There are dead weights in political and legislative bodies as in clocks, and hundreds answer as pulleys who would never do for politicians.

It is a bird-flight of the soul, when the heart declares itself in song. The affections that clothe themselves with wings are passions that have been subdued to virtues.

No doubt solitude is wholesome, but so is abstinence after a surfeit. The true life of man is in society.

But for that blindness which is inseparable from malice, what terrible powers of evil would it possess! Fortunately for the world, its venom, like that of the rattlesnake, when most poisonous, clouds the eye of the reptile, and defeats its aim.

Our possessions are wholly in our performances. He owns nothing to whom the world owes nothing.

What we call vice in our neighbor may be nothing less than a crude virtue. To him who knows nothing more of precious stones than he can learn from a daily contemplation of his breastpin, a diamond in the mine must be a very uncompromising sort of stone.

Vanity is so constantly solicitous of self, that even where its own claims are not interested, it indirectly seeks the aliment which it loves, by showing how little is deserved by others.

Vanity may be likened to the smooth-skinned and velvet-footed mouse, nibbling about for ever in expectation of a crumb; while Self-Esteem is too apt to take the likeness of the huge butcher's dog, who carries off your steaks, and growls at you as he goes.

Tears are the natural penalties of pleasure. It is a law that we should pay for all that we enjoy.