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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.

Alexander Smith

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Alexander Smith
Age: 36 †
Born: 1830
Born: December 31
Died: 1867
Died: January 5
Poet
Cille Mheàrnaig
World
Accidents
Suppose
Wide
Failure
Sternest
Philosophy
Strictest
Justice
Truest
Success
Arena
Whole
Frequently

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To have to die is a distinction of which no man is proud.
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The only thing a man knows is himself.
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Christmas is the day that holds all time together.
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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.
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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.
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My heart like moon-charmed waters, all unrest.
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Pleasure has no logic it never treads in its own footsteps.
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How deeply seated in the human heart is the liking for gardens and gardening.
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We are never happy we can only remember that we were so once.
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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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A poem round and perfect as a star.
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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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Vanity in its idler moments is benevolent, is as willing to give pleasure as to take it, and accepts as sufficient reward for its services a kind word or an approving smile.
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I go into my library, and all history unrolls before me. I breathe the morning air of the world while the scent of Eden's roses yet lingered in it, while it vibrated only to the world's first brood of nightingales, and to the laugh of Eve. I see the pyramids building I hear the shoutings of the armies of Alexander.
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A man's real possession is his memory. In nothing else is he rich, in nothing else is he poor.
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A man does not plant a tree for himself he plants it for posterity.
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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 world is not so much in need of new thoughts as that when thought grows old and worn with usage it should, like current coin, be called in, and, from the mint of genius, reissued fresh and new.
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Death, which we are accustomed to consider an evil, really acts for us the friendliest part, and takes away the commonplace of existence.
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The great man is the man who does a thing for the first time.
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