Alexander Smith Quotes & Sayings

A poem round and perfect as a star. — Alexander Smith

Seated in my library at night, and looking on the silent faces of my books, I am occasionally visited by a strange sense of the supernatural. — Alexander Smith

And in any case, to the old man, when the world becomes trite, the triteness arises not so much from a cessation as from a transference of interest. What is taken from this world is given to the next. The glory is in the east in the morning, it is in the west in the afternoon, and when it is dark the splendour is irradiating the realm of the under-world. He would only follow. — Alexander Smith

One never hugs one's good luck so affectionately as when listening to the relation of some horrible misfortunes which has overtaken others. — Alexander Smith

There is a slow-growing beauty which only comes to perfection in old age ... I have seen sweeter smiles on a lip of seventy than I ever saw on a lip of seventeen. There is the beauty of youth, and there is also the beauty of holiness - a beauty much more seldom met; and more frequently found in the arm-chair by the fire, with grandchildren around its knee, than in the ball-room or the promenade. — Alexander Smith

Good-humor and, generosity carry day with the popular heart all the world over. — Alexander Smith

How deeply seated in the human heart is the liking for gardens and gardening. — Alexander Smith

A bottomless pit of violence, a Tower of Babel where all are speakers and no hearers. — Alexander Smith

The dead keep their secrets, and in a while we shall be as wise as they - and as taciturn. — Alexander Smith

My friend is not perfect-no more than I am-and so we suit each other admirable. — Alexander Smith

The greatness of an artist or a writer does not depend on what he has in common with other artists and writers, but on what he has peculiar to himself. — Alexander Smith

Trees are your best antiques. — Alexander Smith

Style, after all, rather than thought, is the immortal thing in literature. — Alexander Smith

It is not of so much consequence what you say, as how you say it. Memorable sentences are memorable on account of some single irradiating word. — Alexander Smith

We have two lives;
The soul of man is like the rolling world,
One half in day, the other dipt in night;
The one has music and the flying cloud,
The other, silence and the wakeful stars. — Alexander Smith

The pale child, Eve, leading her mother, Night. — Alexander Smith

Not on the stage alone, in the world also, a man's real character comes out best in his asides. — Alexander Smith

Memory is a mans real possession....in nothing else is he rich....in nothing else is he poor. — Alexander Smith

To have to die is a distinction of which no man is proud. — Alexander Smith

A brave soul is a thing which all things serve. — Alexander Smith

I would rather be remembered by a song than by a victory. — Alexander Smith

In winter, when the dismal rain
Comes down in slanting lines,
And Wind, that grand old harper, smote
His thunder-harp of pines. — Alexander Smith

A single soul is richer than all the worlds. — Alexander Smith

Stirling, like a huge brooch, clasps Highlands and Lowlands together. — Alexander Smith

We bury love; Forgetfulness grows over it like grass: That is a thing to weep for, not the dead. — Alexander Smith

Thoughts must come naturally, like wild-flowers; they cannot be forced in a hot-bed, even although aided by the leaf-mould of your past. — Alexander Smith

Books are a finer world within our world. — Alexander Smith

An old novel has a history of its own. — Alexander Smith

Death takes away the commonplace of life. — Alexander Smith

Men praise poverty, as the African worships Mumbo Jumbo
from terror of the malign power, and a desire to propitiate at. — Alexander Smith

In my garden, care stops at the gate and gazes at me wistfully through the bars. — Alexander Smith

If we were to live here always, with no other care than how to feed, clothe, and house ourselves, life would be a very sorry business. It is immeasurably heightened by the solemnity of death. — Alexander Smith

Vanity in its idler moments is benevolent, is as willing to give pleasure as to take it, and accepts as sufficient reward for its services a kind word or an approving smile. — Alexander Smith

Most brilliant star upon the crest of Time
Is England. England! — Alexander Smith

The spot of ground on which a man has stood is forever interesting to him. — Alexander Smith

If you wish to preserve your secret, wrap it up in frankness. — Alexander Smith

Everything is sweetened by risk. — Alexander Smith

Christmas is the day that holds all time together. — Alexander Smith

A tender sadness drops upon my soul, like the soft twilight dropping on the world. — Alexander Smith

Trifles make up the happiness or the misery of human life. — Alexander Smith

The sun was down, And all the west was paved with sullen fire. I cried, Behold! the barren beach of hell At ebb of tide. — Alexander Smith

Love is but the discovery of ourselves in others, and the delight in the recognition. — Alexander Smith

We are never happy; we can only remember that we were so once. — Alexander Smith

The world is not so much in need of new thoughts as that when thought grows old and worn with usage it should, like current coin, be called in, and, from the mint of genius, reissued fresh and new. — Alexander Smith

In my garden I spend my days; in my library I spend my nights. — Alexander Smith

A great man is the man who does something for the first time. — Alexander Smith

If a man is worth knowing at all, he is worth knowing well. — Alexander Smith

Looking forward into an empty year strikes one with a certain awe, because one finds therein no recognition. The years behind have a friendly aspect, and they are warmed by the fires we have kindled, and all their echoes are the echoes of our own voices. — Alexander Smith

A man gazing on the stars is proverbially at the mercy of the puddles in the road. — Alexander Smith

Eternity doth wear upon her face the veil of time. They only see the veil, and thus they know not what they stand so near! — Alexander Smith

Failure and success are not accidents, but the strictest justice. — Alexander Smith

Pride's chickens have bonny feathers, but they are an expensive brood to rear. They eat up everything, and are always lean when brought to market. — Alexander Smith

The pleased sea on a white-breasted shore
A shore that wears on her alluring brows Rare shells, far brought, the love-gifts of the sea, That blushed a tell-tale. — Alexander Smith

I have learned to prize the quiet, lightning deed, not the applauding thunder at its heels that men call fame. — Alexander Smith

The saddest thing that befalls a soul is when it loses faith in God and woman. — Alexander Smith

To be occasionally quoted is the only fame I care for. — Alexander Smith

Men and women make their own beauty or their own ugliness. Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton speaks in one of his novels of a man "who was uglier than he had any business to be;" and, if we could but read it, every human being carries his life in his face, and is good-looking or the reverse as that life has been good or evil. On our features the fine chisels of thought and emotion are eternally at work. — Alexander Smith

There is a certain even-handed justice in Time; and for what he takes away he gives us something in return. He robs us of elasticity of limb and spirit, and in its place he brings tranquility and repose - the mild autumnal weather of the soul. — Alexander Smith

Fame is but an inscription on a grave, and glory the melancholy blazon on a coffin lid. — Alexander Smith

A man can bear a world's contempt when he has that within which says he's worthy. When he contemns himself, there burns the hell. — Alexander Smith

Nature never quite goes along with us. She is somber at weddings, sunny at funerals, and she frowns on ninety-nine out of a hundred picnics. — Alexander Smith

A man doesn't plant a tree for himself. He plants it for posterity. — Alexander Smith

If you do your fair day's work, you are certain to get your fair day's wage - in praise or pudding, whichever happens to suit your taste. — Alexander Smith

I go into my library and all history unrolls before me. — Alexander Smith

The only thing a man knows is himself. — Alexander Smith

How beautiful the yesterday that stood
Over me like a rainbow! I am alone,
The past is past. I see the future stretch
All dark and barren as a rainy sea. — Alexander Smith

The discovery of a grey hair when you are brushing out your whiskers of a morning - first fallen flake of the coming snows of age - is a disagreeable thing ... — Alexander Smith

We twain have met like the ships upon the sea, Who behold an hour's converse, so short, so sweet: One little hour! and then, away they speed On lonely paths, through mist, and cloud, and foam, To meet no more. — Alexander Smith

Books are a finer world within the world. — Alexander Smith

A thought may be very commendable as a thought, but I value it chiefly as a window through which I can obtain insight on the thinker. — Alexander Smith

Pleasure has no logic; it never treads in its own footsteps. — Alexander Smith

Every day travels toward death; the last only arrives at it. — Alexander Smith

Sweet April's tears, Dead on the hem of May. — Alexander Smith

To sit for one's portrait is like being present at one's own creation. — Alexander Smith

There is no ghost so difficult to lay as the ghost of an injury. — Alexander Smith

Winter does not work only on a broad scale; he is careful in trifles. — Alexander Smith

Each time we love,We turn a nearer and a broader markTo that keen archer, Sorrow, and he strikes. — Alexander Smith

My heart like moon-charmed waters, all unrest ... — Alexander Smith

To bring the best human qualities to anything like perfection, to fill them with the sweet juices of courtesy and charity, prosperity, or, at all events, a moderate amount of it, is required,
just as sunshine is needed for the ripening of peaches and apricots. — Alexander Smith

To-day is always different from yesterday. — Alexander Smith

The truly great rest in the knowledge of their own deserts, nor seek the conformation of the world. — Alexander Smith

Death is the ugly fact which Nature has to hide, and she hides it well. — Alexander Smith

The globe has been circumnavigated, but no man ever yet has; you may survey a kingdom and note the result in maps, but all the savants in the world could not produce a reliable map of the poorest human personality. — Alexander Smith

God has thickly strewn infinity with grandeur. — Alexander Smith

If you wish to make a man look noble, your best course is to kill him. What superiority he may have inherited from his race, what superiority nature may have personally gifted him with, comes out in death. — Alexander Smith

The sea complains upon a thousand shores. — Alexander Smith

In life there is nothing more unexpected and surprising than the arrivals and departures of pleasure. If we find it in one place today, it is vain to seek it there tomorrow. You can not lay a trap for it. — Alexander Smith

In the entire circle of the year there are no days so delightful as those of a fine October, when the trees are bare to the mild heavens, and the red leaves bestrew the road, and you can feel the breath of winter, morning and evening - no days so calm, so tenderly solemn, and with such a reverent meekness in the air. — Alexander Smith

If the egotist is weak, his egotism is worthless. If the egotist is strong, acute, full of distinctive character, his egotism is precious, and remains a possession of the race. — Alexander Smith

Yet through all, we know this tangled skein is in the hands of One, Who sees the end from the beginning: He shall unravel all. — Alexander Smith

Your death and my death are mainly of importance to ourselves. The black plumes will be stripped off our hearses within the hour; tears will dry, hurt hearts close again, our graves grow level with the church-yard, and although we are away, the world wags on. It does not miss us; and those who are near us, when the first strangeness of vacancy wears off, will not miss us much either. — Alexander Smith

There is nothing good in this world which time does not improve. — Alexander Smith

The man who in this world can keep the whiteness of his soul is not likely to lose it in any other. — Alexander Smith

Every man's road in life is marked by the graves of his personal liking. — Alexander Smith