Those who, from the desire of our perfection, have the keenest eye far our faults generally compensate for it by taking a higher view of our merits than we deserve.
John Frederick BoyesSombre thoughts and fancies often require a little real soil or substance to flourish in; they are the dark pine-trees which take root in, and frown over the rifts of the scathed and petrified heart, and are chiefly nourished by the rain of unavailing tears, and the vapors of fancy.
John Frederick BoyesThere are some books and characters so pleasant, or rather which contain so much that is pleasant, that criticism is perplexed or silent. The hounds are perpetually at fault among the sweet-scented herbs and flowers that grow at the base of Etna.
John Frederick BoyesThere is scarcely a man who is not conscious of the benefits which his own mind has received from the performance of single acts of benevolence. How strange that so few of us try a course of the same medicine!
John Frederick Boyes