Quote

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.

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
Value
Values
Thought
Commendable
May
Chiefly
Obtain
Thinker
Insight
Window

More quotes by Alexander Smith

Image
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.
Alexander Smith
Image
My heart like moon-charmed waters, all unrest.
Alexander Smith
Image
The only thing a man knows is himself.
Alexander Smith
Image
Each time we love,We turn a nearer and a broader markTo that keen archer, Sorrow, and he strikes.
Alexander Smith
Image
To have to die is a distinction of which no man is proud.
Alexander Smith
Image
The spot of ground on which a man has stood is forever interesting to him.
Alexander Smith
Image
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.
Alexander Smith
Image
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
Image
Trifles make up the happiness or the misery of mortal life.
Alexander Smith
Image
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.
Alexander Smith
Image
We are never happy we can only remember that we were so once.
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
I have learned to prize the quiet, lightning deed, not the applauding thunder at its heels that men call fame.
Alexander Smith
Image
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.
Alexander Smith
Image
A poem round and perfect as a star.
Alexander Smith
Image
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.
Alexander Smith
Image
In life there is nothing more unexpected and surprising than the arrivals and departures of pleasure. If we find it in one place today, it is vain to seek it there tomorrow. You can not lay a trap for it.
Alexander Smith
Image
Not on the stage alone, in the world also, a man's real character comes out best in his asides.
Alexander Smith
Image
Sweet April's tears, Dead on the hem of May.
Alexander Smith
Image
Fame is but an inscription on a grave, and glory the melancholy blazon on a coffin lid.
Alexander Smith