William Gilmore Simms Quotes

The true law of the race is progress and development. Whenever civilization pauses in the march of conquest, it is overthrown by the barbarian.

Ambition is frequently the only refuge which life has left to the denied or mortified affections. We chide at the grasping eye, the daring wing, the soul that seems to thirst for sovereignty only, and know not that the flight of this ambitious bird has been from a bosom or home that is filled with ashes.

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.

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

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.

The fool is willing to pay for anything but wisdom. No man buys that of which he supposes himself to have an abundance already.

He who would acquire fame must not show himself afraid of censure. The dread of censure is the death of genius.

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

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

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!

To make punishments efficacious, two things are necessary. They must never be disproportioned to the offence, and they must be certain.

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.

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.

The only true source of politeness is consideration.

Solitude bears the same relation to the mind that sleep does to the body. It affords it the necessary opportunities for repose and recovery.