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To make punishments efficacious, two things are necessary. They must never be disproportioned to the offence, and they must be certain.

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
Necessary
Two
Certain
Must
Efficacious
Make
Punishments
Things
Offence
Never
Punishment
Prison

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Solitude bears the same relation to the mind that sleep does to the body. It affords it the necessary opportunities for repose and recovery.
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The birth of a child is the imprisonment of a soul.
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Distinction is an eminence that is attained but too frequently at the expense of a fireside.
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Vanity may be likened to the smooth-skinned and velvet-footed mouse, nibbling about forever in expectation of a crumb while self-esteem is too apt to take the likeness of the huge butcher's dog, who carries off your steaks, and growls at you as be goes.
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Not in sorrow freely is never to open the bosom to the sweets of the sunshine.
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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.
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We must calculate not on the weather, nor on fortune, but upon God and ourselves. He may fail us in the gratification of our wishes, but never in the encounter with our exigencies.
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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.
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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.
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The birth of a child is the imprisonment of a soul. The soul must work its way out of prison, and, in doing so, provide itself with wings for a future journey. It is for each of us to determine whether our wings shall be those of an angel or a grub!
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The only true source of politeness is consideration,--that vigilant moral sense which never loses sight of the rights, the claims, and the sensibilities of others. This is the one quality, over all others, necessary to make a gentleman.
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Philosophy is reason with the eyes of the soul.
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The wonder is not that the world is so easily governed, but that so small a number of persons will suffice for the purpose. There are dead weights in political and legislative bodies as in clocks, and hundreds answer as pulleys who would never do for politicians.
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Stagnation is something worse than death. It is corruption, also.
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No errors of opinion can possibly be dangerous in a country where opinion is left free to grapple with them.
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Revelation may not need the help of reason, but man does, even when in possession of revelation. Reason may be described as the candle in the man's hand, to which revelation brings the necessary flame.
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Philosophy has its bugbears, as well as superstition.
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Tears are the natural penalties of pleasure. It is a law that we should pay for all that we enjoy.
William Gilmore Simms
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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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Genius is the very eye of intellect and the wing of thought it is always in advance of its time, and is the pioneer for the generation which it precedes.
William Gilmore Simms