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The possession of unlimited power will make a despot of almost any man. There is a possible Nero in the gentlest human creature that walks.
Thomas Bailey Aldrich
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Thomas Bailey Aldrich
Age: 70 †
Born: 1836
Born: November 2
Died: 1907
Died: March 19
Editor
Journalist
Novelist
Poet
Writer
Portsmouth
New Hampshire
Human
Creature
Humans
Tyranny
Make
Possession
Men
Creatures
Gentlest
Walks
Despot
Almost
Nero
Possible
Despots
Power
Unlimited
More quotes by Thomas Bailey Aldrich
So I sit there kicked my heels, thinking about New Orleans, and watching a morbid blue-bottle fly attempt to commit suicide by butting his head against the windowpane.
Thomas Bailey Aldrich
This one sits shivering in Fortune's smile, taking his joy with bated, doubtful breath. This other, gnawed by hunger, all the while laughs in the teeth of Death.
Thomas Bailey Aldrich
Hebe's here, May is here! The air is fresh and sunny And the miser-bees are busy Hoarding golden honey.
Thomas Bailey Aldrich
Imagine all human beings swept off the face of the earth, excepting one man. Imagine this man in some vast city, New York or London. Imagine him on the third or fourth day of his solitude sitting in a house and hearing a ring at the door-bell!
Thomas Bailey Aldrich
Great orators who are not also great writers become very indistinct shadows to the generations following them. The spell vanishes with the voice.
Thomas Bailey Aldrich
Black Tragedy lets slip her grim disguise and shows you laughing lips and roguish eyes but when, unmasked, gay Comedy appears, how wan her cheeks are, and what heavy tears!
Thomas Bailey Aldrich
The fate of the worm refutes the pretended ethical teaching of the proverb, which assumes to illustrate the advantage of early rising and does so by showing how extremely dangerous it is.
Thomas Bailey Aldrich
Up from the dark the moon begins to creep and now a pallid, haggard face lifts she above the water-line: thus from the deep a drowned body rises solemnly.
Thomas Bailey Aldrich
How fugitive and brief is mortal life between the budding and the falling leaf.
Thomas Bailey Aldrich
The fanatic has the courage of his conviction and the intolerance of his courage. He is opposed to the death penalty for murder, but he would willingly have anyone electrocuted who disagreed with him on the subject.
Thomas Bailey Aldrich
To keep the heart unwrinkled, to be hopeful, kindly, cheerful, reverent that is to triumph over old age.
Thomas Bailey Aldrich
O harp of life, so speedily unstrung!
Thomas Bailey Aldrich
Dialect tempered with slang is an admirable medium of communication between persons who have nothing to say and persons who would not care for anything properly said.
Thomas Bailey Aldrich
What is slang in one age sometimes goes into the vocabulary of the purist in the next.
Thomas Bailey Aldrich
Gracious to all, to none subservient, Without offense he spoke the word he meant
Thomas Bailey Aldrich
Come watch with me the shaft of fire that glows in yonder West the fair, frail palaces, The fading Alps and archipelagoes and great cloud continents of sunset-seas.
Thomas Bailey Aldrich
Everyone has a bookplate these days, and the collectors are after it. The fool and his bookplate are soon parted. To distribute one's ex libris is inanely to destroy the only significance it has, that of indicating the past or present ownership of the volume in which it is placed.
Thomas Bailey Aldrich
Day is a snow-white Dove of heaven That from the East glad message brings. Night is a stealthy, evil Raven, Wrapped to the eyes in his black wings.
Thomas Bailey Aldrich
They fail, and they alone, who have not striven.
Thomas Bailey Aldrich
We weep when we are born, Not when we die!
Thomas Bailey Aldrich
