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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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William Gilmore Simms
Age: 64 †
Born: 1806
Born: April 17
Died: 1870
Died: June 11
Historian
Lawyer
Novelist
Poet
Charleston
South Carolina
Tears
Pay
Pleasure
Law
Enjoy
Natural
Penalties

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Distinction is an eminence that is attained but too frequently at the expense of a fireside.
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What we call vice in our neighbor may be nothing less than a crude virtue. To him who knows nothing more of precious stones than he can learn from a daily contemplation of his breastpin, a diamond in the mine must be a very uncompromising sort of stone.
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The amiable is a duty most certainly, but must not be exercised at the expense of any of the virtues. He who seeks to do the amiable always, can only be successful at the frequent expense of his manhood.
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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.
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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.
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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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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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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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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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The proverb answers where the sermon fails.
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Have I done anything for society? I have then done more for myself. Let that question and truth be always present to thy mind, and work without cessation.
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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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I believe that economists put decimal points in their forecasts to show they have a sense of humor.
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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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No errors of opinion can possibly be dangerous in a country where opinion is left free to grapple with them.
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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.
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No doubt solitude is wholesome, but so is abstinence after a surfeit. The true life of man is in society.
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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.
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