Quote

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.

William Gilmore Simms

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

William Gilmore Simms
Age: 64 †
Born: 1806
Born: April 17
Died: 1870
Died: June 11
Historian
Lawyer
Novelist
Poet
Charleston
South Carolina
Soul
Wings
Ashes
Mortified
Life
Ambition
Thirst
Bosom
Bird
Refuge
Affections
Filled
Frequently
Grasping
Eye
Ambitious
Bosoms
Left
Denied
Sovereignty
Seems
Flight
Wing
Home
Affection
Daring
Chide

More quotes by William Gilmore Simms

Image
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
Image
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
Image
Our possessions are wholly in our performances. He owns nothing to whom the world owes nothing.
William Gilmore Simms
Image
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.
William Gilmore Simms
Image
There is no doubt such a thing as chance, but I see no reason why Providence should not make use of it.
William Gilmore Simms
Image
Not in sorrow freely is never to open the bosom to the sweets of the sunshine.
William Gilmore Simms
Image
The birth of a child is the imprisonment of a soul.
William Gilmore Simms
Image
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
Image
To make punishments efficacious, two things are necessary. They must never be disproportioned to the offence, and they must be certain.
William Gilmore Simms
Image
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
Image
The only true source of politeness is consideration.
William Gilmore Simms
Image
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.
William Gilmore Simms
Image
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
Image
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.
William Gilmore Simms
Image
Philosophy has its bugbears, as well as superstition.
William Gilmore Simms
Image
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
Image
Distinction is an eminence that is attained but too frequently at the expense of a fireside.
William Gilmore Simms
Image
Stagnation is something worse than death. It is corruption, also.
William Gilmore Simms
Image
The only rational liberty is that which is born of subjection, reared in the fear of God and the love of man.
William Gilmore Simms
Image
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