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

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

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The minister's brain is often the poor-box of the church.
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Of the three prerequisites of genius the first is soul the second is soul and the third is soul.
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Sin, every day, takes out a patent for some new invention.
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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.
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Mirth is a Proteus, changing its shape and manner with the thousand diversities of individual character, from the most superfluous gayety to the deepest, moat earnest humor.
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Even in social life, it is persistency which attracts confidence, more than talents and accomplishments.
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An epigram often flashes light into regions where reason shines but dimly.
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We like the fine extravagance of that philosopher who declared that no man was as rich as all men ought to be.
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The strife of politics tends to unsettle the calmest understanding, and ulcerate the most benevolent heart. There are no bigotries or absurdities too gross for parties to create or adopt under the stimulus of political passions.
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The purity of the critical ermine, like that of the judicial, is often soiled by contact with politics.
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Genius may be almost defined as the faculty of acquiring poverty.
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We all originally came from the woods! it is hard to eradicate from any of us the old taste for the tattoo and the war-paint and the moment that money gets into our pockets, it somehow or another breaks out in ornaments on our person, without always giving refinement to our manners.
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Nature and society are so replete with startling contrasts that wit often consists in the mere statement and comparison of facts, as when Hume says that the ancient Muscovites wedded their wives with a whip instead of a ring.
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Felicity, not fluency of language, is a merit.
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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.
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Character is the spiritual body of the person, and represents the individualization of vital experience, the conversion of unconscious things into self-conscious men.
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Knowledge, like religion, must be experienced in order to be known.
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Some men find happiness in gluttony and in drunkenness, but no delicate viands can touch their taste with the thrill of pleasure, and what generosity there is in wine steadily refuses to impart its glow to their shriveled hearts.
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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.
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A politician weakly and amiably in the right, is no match for a politician tenaciously and pugnaciously in the wrong.
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