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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.
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
Listen
Respect
Reserving
Knowledge
Merited
Character
Incontestable
Right
Censure
Always
Freely
Criticism
Intelligence
More quotes by William Gilmore Simms
To make punishments efficacious, two things are necessary. They must never be disproportioned to the offence, and they must be certain.
William Gilmore Simms
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.
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
Philosophy is reason with the eyes of the soul.
William Gilmore Simms
The dread of criticism is the death of genius.
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
Modesty is policy, no less than virtue.
William Gilmore Simms
Better that we should err in action than wholly refuse to perform. The storm is so much better than the calm, as it declares the presence of a living principle. Stagnation is something worse than death. It is corruption also.
William Gilmore Simms
Not in sorrow freely is never to open the bosom to the sweets of the sunshine.
William Gilmore Simms
The birth of a child is the imprisonment of a soul.
William Gilmore Simms
Philosophy has its bugbears, as well as superstition.
William Gilmore Simms
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.
William Gilmore Simms
Distinction is an eminence that is attained but too frequently at the expense of a fireside.
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
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
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
I believe that economists put decimal points in their forecasts to show they have a sense of humor.
William Gilmore Simms
No doubt solitude is wholesome, but so is abstinence after a surfeit. The true life of man is in society.
William Gilmore Simms
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
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
