Alexander Smith Quotes

Death is the ugly fact which Nature has to hide, and she hides it well.

Fame is but an inscription on a grave, and glory the melancholy blazon on a coffin lid.

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

In my garden I spend my days, in my library I spend my nights. My interests are divided between my geraniums and my books. With the flower I am in the present; with the book I am in the past.

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

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

There is nothing good in this world which time does not improve.

If we were to live here always, with no other care than how to feed, clothe, and house ourselves, life would be a very sorry business. It is immeasurably heightened by the solemnity of death.

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.

Most brilliant star upon the crest of Time Is England. England!

The only thing a man knows is himself.

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.

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

My friend is not perfect-no more than I am-and so we suit each other admirable.

A bottomless pit of violence, a Tower of Babel where all are speakers and no hearers.

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

Seated in my library at night, and looking on the silent faces of my books, I am occasionally visited by a strange sense of the supernatural.

Death, which we are accustomed to consider an evil, really acts for us the friendliest part, and takes away the commonplace of existence.

A man can bear a world's contempt when he has that within which says he's worthy. When he contemns himself, there burns the hell.

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!

Some books are drenchèd sandsOn which a great soul's wealth lies all in heaps,Like a wrecked argosy.

Thoughts must come naturally, like wild-flowers; they cannot be forced in a hot-bed, even although aided by the leaf-mould of your past.

Yet through all, we know this tangled skein is in the hands of One, Who sees the end from the beginning: He shall unravel all.

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

My heart like moon-charmed waters, all unrest.

To-day is always different from yesterday.

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.

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

An old novel has a history of its own.

In my garden, care stops at the gate and gazes at me wistfully through the bars.

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

A poem round and perfect as a star.

We have two lives; The soul of man is like the rolling world, One half in day, the other dipt in night; The one has music and the flying cloud, The other, silence and the wakeful stars.

Not on the stage alone, in the world also, a man's real character comes out best in his asides.

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.

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.

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.

Every day travels toward death; the last only arrives at it.

If you wish to preserve your secret wrap it up in frankness.

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

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

A man’s real possession is his memory. In nothing else is he rich, in nothing else is he poor.