327 Quotes by Christian Nestell Bovee

Wit, like poetry, is insusceptible of being constructed upon rules founded merely in reason. Like faith, it exists independent of reason, and sometimes in hostility to it.

The busiest of living agents are certain dead men's thoughts.

Affliction, like the iron-smith, shapes as it smites.

If one is not virtuous he becomes vicious.

Wit never appears to greater advantage than when it is successfully exerted to relieve from a dilemma, palliate a deficiency, or cover a retreat.

The light in the world comes principally from two sources,-the sun, and the student's lamp.

We take life too seriously: the office of wit is to correct this tendency.

The loss of a beloved connection awakens an interest in Heaven before unfelt.

There is no tyrant like custom, and no freedom where its edicts are not resisted.