Quote

The universal line of distinction between the strong and the weak is that one persists the other hesitates, falters, trifles, and at last collapses or caves in.

Edwin Percy Whipple

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Edwin Percy Whipple
Age: 67 †
Born: 1819
Born: March 8
Died: 1886
Died: June 16
Author
Essayist
Journalist
Literary Critic
Writer
Gloucester
Massachusetts
Line
Trifles
Lines
Caves
Lasts
Persist
Last
Collapse
Strong
Perseverance
Falters
Distinction
Hesitates
Weak
Collapses
Universal
Persists

More quotes by Edwin Percy Whipple

Image
Even in social life, it is persistency which attracts confidence, more than talents and accomplishments.
Edwin Percy Whipple
Image
A large portion of human beings live not so much in themselves as in what they desire to be. They create what is called an ideal character, in an ideal form, whose perfections compensate in some degree for the imperfections of their own.
Edwin Percy Whipple
Image
As men neither fear nor respect what has been made contemptible, all honor to him who makes oppression laughable as well as detestable. Armies cannot protect it then and walls which have remained impenetrable to cannon have fallen before a roar of laughter or a hiss of contempt.
Edwin Percy Whipple
Image
There is a natural disposition with us to judge an author's personal character by the character of his works. We find it difficult to understand the common antithesis of a good writer and a bad man.
Edwin Percy Whipple
Image
What a man does with his wealth depends upon his idea of happiness. Those who draw prizes in life are apt to spend tastelessly, if not viciously not knowing that it requires as much talent to spend as to make.
Edwin Percy Whipple
Image
There is a serious and resolute egotism that makes a man interesting to his friends and formidable to his opponents.
Edwin Percy Whipple
Image
Genius is not a single power, but a combination of great powers. It reasons, but it is not reasoning it judges, but it is not judgment imagines, but it is not imagination it feels deeply and fiercely, but it is not passion. It is neither, because it is all.
Edwin Percy Whipple
Image
Humor, warm and all-embracing as the sunshine, bathes its objects in a genial and abiding light.
Edwin Percy Whipple
Image
Cervantes shrewdly advises to lay a bridge of silver for a flying enemy.
Edwin Percy Whipple
Image
The minister's brain is often the poor-box of the church.
Edwin Percy Whipple
Image
Irony is an insult conveyed in the form of a compliment.
Edwin Percy Whipple
Image
Sydney Smith playfully says that common sense was invented by Socrates, that philosopher having been one of its most conspicuous exemplars in conducting the contest of practical sagacity against stupid prejudice and illusory beliefs.
Edwin Percy Whipple
Image
A thought embodied and embrained in fit words walks the earth a living being.
Edwin Percy Whipple
Image
What does competency in the long run mean? It means to all reasonable beings, cleanliness of person, decency of dress, courtesy of manners, opportunities for education, the delights of leisure, and the bliss of giving.
Edwin Percy Whipple
Image
Books are lighthouses erected in the great sea of time.
Edwin Percy Whipple
Image
Talent is full of thoughts, Genius is thought. Talent is a cistern, Genius a fountain.
Edwin Percy Whipple
Image
Character is the spiritual body of the person, and represents the individualization of vital experience, the conversion of unconscious things into self-conscious men.
Edwin Percy Whipple
Image
An epigram often flashes light into regions where reason shines but dimly.
Edwin Percy Whipple
Image
Humor implies a sure conception of the beautiful, the majestic and he true, by whose light it surveys and shape s their opposites. It is a humane influence, softening with mirth the ragged inequities of existence, prompting tolerant views of life, bridging over the space which separates the lofty from the lowly, the great from the humble.
Edwin Percy Whipple
Image
No education deserves the name unless it develops thought, unless it pierces down to the mysterious spiritual principle of mind, and starts that into activity and growth.
Edwin Percy Whipple