Quote

If you do your fair day's work, you are certain to get your fair day's wage - in praise or pudding, whichever happens to suit your taste.

Alexander Smith

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Alexander Smith
Age: 36 †
Born: 1830
Born: December 31
Died: 1867
Died: January 5
Poet
Cille Mheàrnaig
Taste
Whichever
Action
Pudding
Happens
Wage
Reality
Suit
Certain
Suits
Work
Fairs
Fair
Praise

More quotes by Alexander Smith

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Pride's chickens have bonny feathers, but they are an expensive brood to rear. They eat up everything, and are always lean when brought to market.
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I go into my library and all history unrolls before me.
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A tender sadness drops upon my soul, like the soft twilight dropping on the world.
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My heart like moon-charmed waters, all unrest.
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If the egotist is weak, his egotism is worthless. If the egotist is strong, acute, full of distinctive character, his egotism is precious, and remains a possession of the race.
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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.
Alexander Smith
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We twain have met like the ships upon the sea, Who behold an hour's converse, so short, so sweet: One little hour! and then, away they speed On lonely paths, through mist, and cloud, and foam, To meet no more.
Alexander Smith
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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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A poem round and perfect as a star.
Alexander Smith
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Men praise poverty, as the African worships Mumbo Jumbo--from terror of the malign power, and a desire to propitiate at.
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Trees are your best antiques
Alexander Smith
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There is no ghost so difficult to lay as the ghost of an injury.
Alexander Smith
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The sea complains upon a thousand shores.
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Books are a finer world within the world. (1863)
Alexander Smith
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The dead keep their secrets, and in a while we shall be as wise as they - and as taciturn.
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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.
Alexander Smith
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Fame is but an inscription on a grave, and glory the melancholy blazon on a coffin lid.
Alexander Smith
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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.
Alexander Smith
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How beautiful the yesterday that stood Over me like a rainbow! I am alone, The past is past. I see the future stretch All dark and barren as a rainy sea.
Alexander Smith
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Love is but the discovery of ourselves in others, and the delight in the recognition.
Alexander Smith