The passions are like fire, useful in a thousand ways and dangerous only in one, through their excess.
Christian Nestell BoveeAs threshing separates the wheat from the chaff, so does affliction purify virtue.
Christian Nestell BoveeThe life even of a just man is a round of petty frauds; that of a knave a series of greater. We degrade life by our follies and vices, and then complain that the unhappiness which is only their accompaniment is inherent in the constitution of things.
Christian Nestell BoveeFortune, like a coy mistress, loves to yield her favors, though she makes us wrest them from her.
Christian Nestell BoveeA good thought is indeed a great boon, for which God is to be first thanked; next he who is the first to utter it, and then, in a lesser, but still in a considerable degree, the friend who is the first to quote it to us. Whoever adopts and circulates a just thought, participates in the merit that originated it.
Christian Nestell Bovee