Quote

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

Alexander Smith

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Alexander Smith
Age: 36 †
Born: 1830
Born: December 31
Died: 1867
Died: January 5
Poet
Cille Mheàrnaig
Grave
Graves
Reputation
Fame
Inscription
Glory
Inscriptions
Coffin
Coffins
Melancholy

More quotes by Alexander Smith

Image
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.
Alexander Smith
Image
Winter does not work only on a broad scale he is careful in trifles.
Alexander Smith
Image
A man gazing at the stars is proverbially at the mercy of the puddles in the road.
Alexander Smith
Image
The great man is the man who does a thing for the first time.
Alexander Smith
Image
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.
Alexander Smith
Image
A tender sadness drops upon my soul, like the soft twilight dropping on the world.
Alexander Smith
Image
The sun was down, And all the west was paved with sullen fire. I cried, Behold! the barren beach of hell At ebb of tide.
Alexander Smith
Image
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.
Alexander Smith
Image
Death is the ugly fact which Nature has to hide, and she hides it well.
Alexander Smith
Image
Style, after all, rather than thought, is the immortal thing in literature.
Alexander Smith
Image
One never hugs one's good luck so affectionately as when listening to the relation of some horrible misfortunes which has overtaken others.
Alexander Smith
Image
To have to die is a distinction of which no man is proud.
Alexander Smith
Image
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.
Alexander Smith
Image
Sweet April's tears, Dead on the hem of May.
Alexander Smith
Image
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.
Alexander Smith
Image
To be occasionally quoted is the only fame I care for.
Alexander Smith
Image
Nature never quite goes along with us. She is somber at weddings, sunny at funerals, and she frowns on ninety-nine out of a hundred picnics.
Alexander Smith
Image
Happiness never lays its finger on its pulse. If we attempt to steal a glimpse of its features it disappears.
Alexander Smith
Image
Books are a finer world within the world. (1863)
Alexander Smith
Image
Death, which we are accustomed to consider an evil, really acts for us the friendliest part, and takes away the commonplace of existence.
Alexander Smith