Quote

Looking forward into an empty year strikes one with a certain awe, because one finds therein no recognition. The years behind have a friendly aspect, and they are warmed by the fires we have kindled, and all their echoes are the echoes of our own voices.

Alexander Smith

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Alexander Smith
Age: 36 †
Born: 1830
Born: December 31
Died: 1867
Died: January 5
Poet
Cille Mheàrnaig
Years
Behinds
Voices
Behind
Finds
Kindled
Memories
Friendly
Warmed
Fire
Recognition
Therein
Year
Strikes
Recollection
Looking
Aspect
Fires
Voice
Forward
Echoes
Certain
Empty
Awe

More quotes by Alexander Smith

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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.
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Christmas is the day that holds all time together.
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To bring the best human qualities to anything like perfection, to fill them with the sweet juices of courtesy and charity, prosperity, or, at all events, a moderate amount of it, is required,--just as sunshine is needed for the ripening of peaches and apricots.
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The greatness of an artist or a writer does not depend on what he has in common with other artists and writers, but on what he has peculiar to himself.
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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.
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A man does not plant a tree for himself he plants it for posterity.
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A man gazing at the stars is proverbially at the mercy of the puddles in the road.
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Sweet April's tears, Dead on the hem of May.
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We bury love Forgetfulness grows over it like grass: That is a thing to weep for, not the dead.
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The truly great rest in the knowledge of their own deserts, nor seek the conformation of the world.
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In my garden I spend my days in my library I spend my nights.
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The great man is the man who does a thing for the first time.
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In the entire circle of the year there are no days so delightful as those of a fine October, when the trees are bare to the mild heavens, and the red leaves bestrew the road, and you can feel the breath of winter, morning and evening - no days so calm, so tenderly solemn, and with such a reverent meekness in the air.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Trees are your best antiques
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There is a certain even-handed justice in Time and for what he takes away he gives us something in return. He robs us of elasticity of limb and spirit, and in its place he brings tranquility and repose—the mild autumnal weather of the soul.
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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.
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It is a characteristic of pleasure that we can never recognize it to be pleasure till after it is gone.
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