Alexander Smith Quotes

Books are a finer world within the world. (1863)

A man does not plant a tree for himself; he plants it for posterity.

Trifles make up the happiness or the misery of mortal life.

I go into my library and all history unrolls before me.

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

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.

To be occasionally quoted is the only fame I care for.

If a man is worth knowing at all, he is worth knowing well.

To sit for one's portrait is like being present at one's own creation.

I go into my library, and all history unrolls before me. I breathe the morning air of the world while the scent of Eden's roses yet lingered in it, while it vibrated only to the world's first brood of nightingales, and to the laugh of Eve. I see the pyramids building; I hear the shoutings of the armies of Alexander.

To bring the best human qualities to anything like perfection, to fill them with the sweet juices of courtesy and charity, prosperity, or, at all events, a moderate amount of it, is required,--just as sunshine is needed for the ripening of peaches and apricots.

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.

My heart like moon-charmed waters, all unrest.

Eternity doth wear upon her face the veil of time. They only see the veil, and thus they know not what they stand so near!

The man who in this world can keep the whiteness of his soul is not likely to lose it in any other.

To have to die is a distinction of which no man is proud.

Looking forward into an empty year strikes one with a certain awe, because one finds therein no recognition. The years behind have a friendly aspect, and they are warmed by the fires we have kindled, and all their echoes are the echoes of our own voices.

God has thickly strewn infinity with grandeur.

Everything is sweetened by risk.

The only thing a man knows is himself.

Pride's chickens have bonny feathers, but they are an expensive brood to rear. They eat up everything, and are always lean when brought to market.

Love is but the discovery of ourselves in others, and the delight in the recognition.

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.

Good-humor and, generosity carry day with the popular heart all the world over.

There is a certain even-handed justice in Time; and for what he takes away he gives us something in return. He robs us of elasticity of limb and spirit, and in its place he brings tranquility and repose—the mild autumnal weather of the soul.

It is a characteristic of pleasure that we can never recognize it to be pleasure till after it is gone.

An old novel has a history of its own.

Your death and my death are mainly of importance to ourselves. The black plumes will be stripped off our hearses within the hour; tears will dry, hurt hearts close again, our graves grow level with the church-yard, and although we are away, the world wags on. It does not miss us; and those who are near us, when the first strangeness of vacancy wears off, will not miss us much either.

The truly great rest in the knowledge of their own deserts, nor seek the conformation of the world.

Every man's road in life is marked by the grave of his personal likings.

One never hugs one's good luck so affectionately as when listening to the relation of some horrible misfortunes which has overtaken others.

A man gazing at the stars is proverbially at the mercy of the puddles in the road.

There is a slow-growing beauty which only comes to perfection in old age.... I have seen sweeter smiles on a lip of seventy than I ever saw on a lip of seventeen. There is the beauty of youth, and there is also the beauty of holiness—a beauty much more seldom met; and more frequently found in the arm-chair by the fire, with grandchildren around its knee, than in the ball-room or the promenade.

We are never happy; we can only remember that we were so once.

Winter does not work only on a broad scale; he is careful in trifles.

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

Happiness never lays its finger on its pulse. If we attempt to steal a glimpse of its features it disappears.

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

It is not of so much consequence what you say, as how you say it. Memorable sentences are memorable on account of some single irradiating word.

The spot of ground on which a man has stood is forever interesting to him.

Stirling, like a huge brooch, clasps Highlands and Lowlands together.

A thought may be very commendable as a thought, but I value it chiefly as a window through which I can obtain insight on the thinker.

Fine phrases I value more than bank-notes. I have ear for no other harmony than the harmony of words. To be occasionally quoted is the only fame I care for.

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.

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.

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

It is the sternest philosophy, but on the whole the truest, that, in the wide arena of the world, failure and success are not accidents, as we so frequently suppose, but the strictest justice.

A brave soul is a thing which all things serve.