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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.

Alexander Smith

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Alexander Smith
Age: 36 †
Born: 1830
Born: December 31
Died: 1867
Died: January 5
Poet
Cille Mheàrnaig
Business
Death
House
Immeasurably
Care
Clothe
Live
Solemnity
Always
Heightened
Would
Feed
Life
Sorry

More quotes by Alexander Smith

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Trifles make up the happiness or the misery of mortal life.
Alexander Smith
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There is nothing good in this world which time does not improve.
Alexander Smith
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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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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
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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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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
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The saddest thing that befalls a soul is when it loses faith in god and woman.
Alexander Smith
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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.
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.
Alexander Smith
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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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To be occasionally quoted is the only fame I care for.
Alexander Smith
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The spot of ground on which a man has stood is forever interesting to him.
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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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
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To-day is always different from yesterday.
Alexander Smith
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Death is the ugly fact which Nature has to hide, and she hides it well.
Alexander Smith
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A tender sadness drops upon my soul, like the soft twilight dropping on the world.
Alexander Smith
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My friend is not perfect-no more than I am-and so we suit each other admirable.
Alexander Smith
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In my garden I spend my days, in my library I spend my nights. My interests are divided between my geraniums and my books. With the flower I am in the present with the book I am in the past.
Alexander Smith
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The truly great rest in the knowledge of their own deserts, nor seek the conformation of the world.
Alexander Smith