Quote

An old novel has a history of its own.

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
Novel
Fiction
History

More quotes by Alexander Smith

Image
A brave soul is a thing which all things serve.
Alexander Smith
Image
If you wish to preserve your secret, wrap it up in frankness.
Alexander Smith
Image
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.
Alexander Smith
Image
If a man is worth knowing at all, he is worth knowing well.
Alexander Smith
Image
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
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
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.
Alexander Smith
Image
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
Image
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.
Alexander Smith
Image
To be occasionally quoted is the only fame I care for.
Alexander Smith
Image
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
Image
A bottomless pit of violence, a Tower of Babel where all are speakers and no hearers.
Alexander Smith
Image
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
Image
Yet through all, we know this tangled skein is in the hands of One, Who sees the end from the beginning: He shall unravel all.
Alexander Smith
Image
A poem round and perfect as a star.
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
Fine phrases I value more than bank-notes. I have ear for no other harmony than the harmony of words. To be occasionally quoted is the only fame I care for.
Alexander Smith
Image
Every man's road in life is marked by the grave of his personal likings.
Alexander Smith
Image
A man's real possession is his memory. In nothing else is he rich, in nothing else is he poor.
Alexander Smith
Image
My garden, with its silence and pulses of fragrance that come and go on the airy undulations, affects me like sweet music. Care stops at the gates, and gazes at me wistfully through the bars.
Alexander Smith