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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
Penalties
Tears
Pay
Pleasure
Law
Enjoy
Natural

More quotes by William Gilmore Simms

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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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The effect of character is always to command consideration. We sport and toy and laugh with men or women who have none, but we never confide in them.
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Ambition is frequently the only refuge which life has left to the denied or mortified affections. We chide at the grasping eye, the daring wing, the soul that seems to thirst for sovereignty only, and know not that the flight of this ambitious bird has been from a bosom or home that is filled with ashes.
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Philosophy has its bugbears, as well as superstition.
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The proverb answers where the sermon fails.
William Gilmore Simms
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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.
William Gilmore Simms
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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.
William Gilmore Simms
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Our possessions are wholly in our performances. He owns nothing to whom the world owes nothing.
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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.
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The only true source of politeness is consideration.
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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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He who would acquire fame must not show himself afraid of censure. The dread of censure is the death of genius.
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The apothegm is the most portable form of Truth.... It is thus that the proverb answers where the sermon fails, as a well-charged pistol will do more execution than a whole barrel of gunpowder idly expended in the air.
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.
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.
William Gilmore Simms
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Distinction is an eminence that is attained but too frequently at the expense of a fireside.
William Gilmore Simms
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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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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.
William Gilmore Simms
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No doubt solitude is wholesome, but so is abstinence after a surfeit. The true life of man is in society.
William Gilmore Simms
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It is a bird-flight of the soul, when the heart declares itself in song. The affections that clothe themselves with wings are passions that have been subdued to virtues.
William Gilmore Simms