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The legitimate aim of criticism is to direct attention to the excellent. The bad will dig its own grave.

Christian Nestell Bovee

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Christian Nestell Bovee
Age: 83 †
Born: 1820
Born: February 22
Died: 1904
Died: January 18
Poet
New York City
New York
bovee
C. N. Bovee
Attention
Legitimate
Grave
Graves
Aim
Excellent
Criticism
Direct

More quotes by Christian Nestell Bovee

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A sound discretion is not so much indicated by never making a mistake as by never repeating it.
Christian Nestell Bovee
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Wit must be without effort. Wit is play, not work a nimbleness of the fancy, not a laborious effort of the will a license, a holiday, a carnival of thought and feeling, not a trifling with speech, a constraint upon language, a duress upon words.
Christian Nestell Bovee
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There are some kinds of men who cannot pass their time alone they are the flails of occupied people.(Bonald, M.} There are few wild beasts more to be dreaded than a communicative man having nothing to communicate.
Christian Nestell Bovee
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The first step toward greatness is to be honest, says the proverb but the proverb fails to state the case strong enough. Honesty is not only the first step toward greatness, - it is greatness itself.
Christian Nestell Bovee
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Men, like musical instruments, seem made to be played upon.
Christian Nestell Bovee
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It is the passion that is in a kiss that gives to it its sweetness it is the affection in a kiss that sanctifies it.
Christian Nestell Bovee
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Marriage, by making us more contented, causes us often to be less enterprising.
Christian Nestell Bovee
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To be without sympathy is to be alone in the world--without friends or country, home or kindred.
Christian Nestell Bovee
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It is the nature of thought to find its way into action.
Christian Nestell Bovee
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A mother is the best friend God ever gave.
Christian Nestell Bovee
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Our first and last love is self-love.
Christian Nestell Bovee
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False friends are like our shadow, keeping close to us while we walk in the sunshine, but leaving us the instant we cross into the shade.
Christian Nestell Bovee
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Genius makes its observations in short-hand talent writes them out at length.
Christian Nestell Bovee
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The beauty of a woman transcends all other forms of beauty, as well in the sweetness of its suggestions, as in the fervor of the admiration it awakens. The beauty of a lovely woman is an inspiration, a sweet delirium, a gentle madness. Her looks are love-potions. Heaven itself is never so clearly revealed to us as in the face of a beautiful woman.
Christian Nestell Bovee
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New situations inspire new thoughts. Here is the benefit of travelling, much more than in mere sight-seeing. We lose ourselves in the streets of our own city, and go abroad to find ourselves.
Christian Nestell Bovee
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Love's sweetest meanings are unspoken the full heart knows no rhetoric of words.
Christian Nestell Bovee
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The highest excellence is seldom attained in more than one vocation. The roads leading to distinction in separate pursuits diverge, and the nearer we approach the one, the farther we recede from the other.
Christian Nestell Bovee
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The loveliest faces are to be seen by moonlight, when one sees half with the eye and half with the fancy.
Christian Nestell Bovee
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Resentments, carried too far, expose us to a fate analogous to that of the fish-hawk, when he strikes his talons too deep into a fish beyond his capacity to lift, and is carried under and drowned by it.
Christian Nestell Bovee
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In general, inquiry ceases when we adopt a theory. After that, we overlook whatever makes against it, and see and think, and talk and write, only in its favor. Indeed, when we have a snug, comfortable theory, to which we are much attached, they appear to us as a very mean set of facts that will not square with it.
Christian Nestell Bovee