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Neither praise nor blame is the object of true criticism. Justly to discriminate, firmly to establish, wisely to prescribe and honestly to award - these are the true aims and duties of criticism.

William Gilmore Simms

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William Gilmore Simms
Age: 64 †
Born: 1806
Born: April 17
Died: 1870
Died: June 11
Historian
Lawyer
Novelist
Poet
Charleston
South Carolina
Neither
Awards
Discriminate
Objects
Discrimination
Justly
Duty
Aim
Award
True
Object
Wisely
Honestly
Aims
Blame
Duties
Criticism
Firmly
Praise
Establish
Prescribe

More quotes by William Gilmore Simms

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Not in sorrow freely is never to open the bosom to the sweets of the sunshine.
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The only rational liberty is that which is born of subjection, reared in the fear of God and the love of man.
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The proverb answers where the sermon fails.
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Tact is one of the first of mental virtues, the absence of which is frequently fatal to the best of talents. Without denying that it is a talent of itself, it will suffice if we admit that it supplies the place of many talents.
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There is a native baseness in the ambition which seeks beyond its desert, that never shows more conspicuously than when, no matter how, it temporarily gains its object.
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It should console us for the fact that sin has not totally disappeared from the world, that the saints are not wholly deprived of employment.
William Gilmore Simms
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The true law of the race is progress and development. Whenever civilization pauses in the march of conquest, it is overthrown by the barbarian.
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The fool is willing to pay for anything but wisdom. No man buys that of which he supposes himself to have an abundance already.
William Gilmore Simms
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I listen to them freely and with all the respect merited by their intelligence, their character, their knowledge, reserving always my incontestable right of criticism and censure.
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Our cares are the mothers, not only of our charities And virtues, but of our best joys and most cheering and enduring pleasures.
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I know not that there is anything in nature more soothing to the mind than the contemplation of the moon, sailing, like some planetary bark, amidst a sea of bright azure. The subject is certainly hackneyed the moon has been sung by poet and poetaster. Is there any marvel that it should be so?
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Most men remember obligations, but not often to be grateful the proud are made sour by the remembrance and the vain silent.
William Gilmore Simms
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I believe that economists put decimal points in their forecasts to show they have a sense of humor.
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Our true acquisitions lie only in our charities - we gain only as we give.
William Gilmore Simms
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Philosophy is reason with the eyes of the soul.
William Gilmore Simms
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Philosophy has its bugbears, as well as superstition.
William Gilmore Simms
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Vanity is so constantly solicitous of self, that even where its own claims are not interested, it indirectly seeks the aliment which it loves, by showing how little is deserved by others.
William Gilmore Simms
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The only true source of politeness is consideration.
William Gilmore Simms
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There is no doubt such a thing as chance, but I see no reason why Providence should not make use of it.
William Gilmore Simms
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But for that blindness which is inseparable from malice, what terrible powers of evil would it possess! Fortunately for the world, its venom, like that of the rattlesnake, when most poisonous, clouds the eye of the reptile, and defeats its aim.
William Gilmore Simms