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The truly great rest in the knowledge of their own deserts, nor seek the conformation of the world.

Alexander Smith

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Alexander Smith
Age: 36 †
Born: 1830
Born: December 31
Died: 1867
Died: January 5
Poet
Cille Mheàrnaig
World
Deserts
Desert
Greatness
Seek
Truly
Rest
Knowledge
Great

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My heart like moon-charmed waters, all unrest.
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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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One never hugs one's good luck so affectionately as when listening to the relation of some horrible misfortunes which has overtaken others.
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I have learned to prize the quiet, lightning deed, not the applauding thunder at its heels that men call fame.
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Eternity doth wear upon her face the veil of time. They only see the veil, and thus they know not what they stand so near!
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The great man is the man who does a thing for the first time.
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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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Winter does not work only on a broad scale he is careful in trifles.
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The globe has been circumnavigated, but no man ever yet has you may survey a kingdom and note the result in maps, but all the savants in the world could not produce a reliable map of the poorest human personality.
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The only thing a man knows is himself.
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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.
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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.
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To sit for one's portrait is like being present at one's own creation.
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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.
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Fame is but an inscription on a grave, and glory the melancholy blazon on a coffin lid.
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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.
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The sun was down, And all the west was paved with sullen fire. I cried, Behold! the barren beach of hell At ebb of tide.
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Pleasure has no logic it never treads in its own footsteps.
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I would rather be remembered by a song than by a victory.
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A man gazing at the stars is proverbially at the mercy of the puddles in the road.
Alexander Smith