Quote

A man of letters is often a man with two natures,--one a book nature, the other a human nature. These often clash sadly.

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
Often
Nature
Two
Human
Authorship
Humans
Natures
Book
Sadly
Men
Clash
Letters

More quotes by Edwin Percy Whipple

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A thought embodied and embrained in fit words walks the earth a living being.
Edwin Percy Whipple
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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.
Edwin Percy Whipple
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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.
Edwin Percy Whipple
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There is a serious and resolute egotism that makes a man interesting to his friends and formidable to his opponents.
Edwin Percy Whipple
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Talent is full of thoughts, Genius is thought. Talent is a cistern, Genius a fountain.
Edwin Percy Whipple
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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
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Irony is an insult conveyed in the form of a compliment.
Edwin Percy Whipple
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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.
Edwin Percy Whipple
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A politician weakly and amiably in the right, is no match for a politician tenaciously and pugnaciously in the wrong.
Edwin Percy Whipple
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Of the three prerequisites of genius the first is soul the second is soul and the third is soul.
Edwin Percy Whipple
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Knowledge, like religion, must be experienced in order to be known.
Edwin Percy Whipple
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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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Sin, every day, takes out a patent for some new invention.
Edwin Percy Whipple
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God is glorified, not by our groans, but our thanksgivings and all good thought and good action claim a natural alliance with good cheer.
Edwin Percy Whipple
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Genius may be almost defined as the faculty of acquiring poverty.
Edwin Percy Whipple
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The minister's brain is often the poor-box of the church.
Edwin Percy Whipple
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Cervantes shrewdly advises to lay a bridge of silver for a flying enemy.
Edwin Percy Whipple
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Nature does not capriciously scatter her secrets as golden gifts to lazy pets and luxurious darlings, but imposes tasks when she presents opportunities, and uplifts him whom she would inform. The apple that she drops at the feet of Newton is but a coy invitation to follow her to the stars.
Edwin Percy Whipple
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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.
Edwin Percy Whipple
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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.
Edwin Percy Whipple