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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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William Gilmore Simms
Age: 64 †
Born: 1806
Born: April 17
Died: 1870
Died: June 11
Historian
Lawyer
Novelist
Poet
Charleston
South Carolina
Barrels
Portable
Answers
Charged
Idly
Form
Sermons
Pistol
Truth
Fails
Gunpowder
Wells
Execution
Proverb
Well
Thus
Pistols
Whole
Barrel
Air
Sermon
Expended
Failing
More quotes by William Gilmore Simms
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
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.
William Gilmore Simms
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
I believe that economists put decimal points in their forecasts to show they have a sense of humor.
William Gilmore Simms
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
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
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!
William Gilmore Simms
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.
William Gilmore Simms
Distinction is an eminence that is attained but too frequently at the expense of a fireside.
William Gilmore Simms
Solitude bears the same relation to the mind that sleep does to the body. It affords it the necessary opportunities for repose and recovery.
William Gilmore Simms
The dread of criticism is the death of genius.
William Gilmore Simms
The birth of a child is the imprisonment of a soul.
William Gilmore Simms
The proverb answers where the sermon fails.
William Gilmore Simms
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?
William Gilmore Simms
Our cares are the mothers, not only of our charities And virtues, but of our best joys and most cheering and enduring pleasures.
William Gilmore Simms
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.
William Gilmore Simms
Our possessions are wholly in our performances. He owns nothing to whom the world owes nothing.
William Gilmore Simms
Modesty is policy, no less than virtue.
William Gilmore Simms
The only true source of politeness is consideration.
William Gilmore Simms
Tears are the natural penalties of pleasure. It is a law that we should pay for all that we enjoy.
William Gilmore Simms
