Quote

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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Alexander Smith
Age: 36 †
Born: 1830
Born: December 31
Died: 1867
Died: January 5
Poet
Cille Mheàrnaig
Moments
Vanity
Give
Sufficient
Idler
Take
Rewards
Idlers
Giving
Smile
Approving
Kind
Accepting
Accepts
Willing
Benevolent
Pleasure
Services
Word
Reward

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We twain have met like the ships upon the sea, Who behold an hour's converse, so short, so sweet: One little hour! and then, away they speed On lonely paths, through mist, and cloud, and foam, To meet no more.
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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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To sit for one's portrait is like being present at one's own creation.
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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.
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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.
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We have two lives The soul of man is like the rolling world, One half in day, the other dipt in night The one has music and the flying cloud, The other, silence and the wakeful stars.
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Pleasure has no logic it never treads in its own footsteps.
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Every man's road in life is marked by the grave of his personal likings.
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Some books are drenchèd sandsOn which a great soul's wealth lies all in heaps,Like a wrecked argosy.
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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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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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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.
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In my garden I spend my days in my library I spend my nights.
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Every day travels toward death the last only arrives at it.
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To have to die is a distinction of which no man is proud.
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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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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.
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The great man is the man who does a thing for the first time.
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There is no ghost so difficult to lay as the ghost of an injury.
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An old novel has a history of its own.
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