Quote

The thing one reads and likes, and then forgets, is of no account. The thing that stays, and haunts one, and refuses to be forgotten, that is the sincere thing.

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
Book
Stays
Thing
Sincere
Account
Accounts
Likes
Haunts
Refuse
Forgets
Forgotten
Refuses
Forget
Reads

More quotes by Thomas Bailey Aldrich

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Hebe's here, May is here! The air is fresh and sunny And the miser-bees are busy Hoarding golden honey.
Thomas Bailey Aldrich
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Shakespeare is forever coming into our affairs -- putting in his oar, so to speak -- with some pat word or sentence.
Thomas Bailey Aldrich
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How fugitive and brief is mortal life between the budding and the falling leaf.
Thomas Bailey Aldrich
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What is lovely never dies, but passes into other loveliness, Star-dust, or sea-foam, flower or winged air.
Thomas Bailey Aldrich
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But I, in the chilling twilight stand and wait At the portcullis, at thy castle gate, Longing to see the charmed door of dreams Turn on its noiseless hinges, delicate sleep!
Thomas Bailey Aldrich
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I like not lady-slippers, Nor yet the sweet-pea blossoms, Nor yet the flaky roses, Red or white as snow I like the chaliced lilies, The heavy Eastern lilies, The gorgeous tiger-lilies, That in our garden grow.
Thomas Bailey Aldrich
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Gracious to all, to none subservient, Without offense he spoke the word he meant
Thomas Bailey Aldrich
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My mind lets go a thousand things, Like dates of wars and deaths of kings
Thomas Bailey Aldrich
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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
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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
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All the best sands of my life are somehow getting into the wrong end of the hourglass. If I could only reverse it! Were it in my power to do sowould I?
Thomas Bailey Aldrich
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October turned my maple's leaves to gold The most are gone now here and there one lingers: Soon these will slip from the twigs' weak hold, Like coins between a dying miser's fingers.
Thomas Bailey Aldrich
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We weep when we are born, Not when we die!
Thomas Bailey Aldrich
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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
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A glance, a word -- and joy or pain befalls.... How slight the links are in the chain that binds us to our destiny!
Thomas Bailey Aldrich
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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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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
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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
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The ring of a false coin is not more recognizable than that of a rhyme setting forth a false sorrow.
Thomas Bailey Aldrich
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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