Christian Nestell Bovee

Panic is a sudden desertion of us, and a going over to the enemy of our imagination.

— Christian Nestell Bovee

Music is the fourth great material want, first food, then clothes, then shelter, then music.

— Christian Nestell Bovee

A failure establishes only this, that our determination to succeed was not strong enough.

— Christian Nestell Bovee

We fear things in proportion to our ignorance of them.

— Christian Nestell Bovee

Our first and last love is self-love.

— Christian Nestell Bovee

Panic is a sudden desertion of us, and a going over to the enemy of our imagination.

— Christian Nestell Bovee

Four sweet lips, two pure souls, and one undying affection,—these are love's pretty ingredients for a kiss.

— Christian Nestell Bovee

He has but one great fear that fears to do wrong.

— Christian Nestell Bovee

The first step toward greatness is to be honest, says the proverb; but the proverb fails to state the case strong enough. Honesty is not only "the first step toward greatness," — it is greatness itself.

— Christian Nestell Bovee

There is probably no hell for authors in the next world — they suffer so much from critics and publishers in this.

— Christian Nestell Bovee

Formerly when great fortunes were only made in war, war was a business; but now, when great fortunes are only made by business, business is war.

— Christian Nestell Bovee

Loose ideas on the subject of business will not answer. It must be reduced to something of a science. It has its principles, upon a knowledge and an application of which, success in it mainly depends.

— Christian Nestell Bovee

"There is nothing," says a correspondent of the New York Times, "which the business world discards as unpractical and useless so much as the quiet, thinking scholar. But this is the man who makes revolutions. Politicians are mere puppets in the hands of men of thought.

— Christian Nestell Bovee

There is, indeed, no wild beast more to be dreaded than a communicative man having nothing to communicate.

— Christian Nestell Bovee

No man is happy without a delusion of some kind. Delusions are as necessary to our happiness as realities.

— Christian Nestell Bovee

Patience is only one faculty; earnestness the devotion of all the faculties. Earnestness is the cause of patience; it gives endurance, overcomes pain, strengthens weakness, braves dangers, sustains hope, makes light of difficulties, and lessens the sense of weariness in overcoming them.

— Christian Nestell Bovee

Example has more followers than reason. We unconsciously imitate what pleases us, and insensibly approximate to the characters we most admire. In this way, a generous habit of thought and of action carries with it an incalculable influence.

— Christian Nestell Bovee

It is the passion that is in a kiss that gives to it its sweetness; it is the affection in a kiss that sanctifies it.

— Christian Nestell Bovee

The language denotes the man. A coarse or refined character finds its expression naturally in a coarse or refined phraseology.

— Christian Nestell Bovee

The light in the world comes principally from two sources,—the sun, and the student's lamp.

— Christian Nestell Bovee

What a man knows should find its expression in what he does. The value of superior knowledge is chiefly in that it leads to a performing manhood.

— Christian Nestell Bovee

Melancholy sees the worst of things,—things as they may be, and not as they are. It looks upon a beautiful face, and sees but a grinning skull.

— Christian Nestell Bovee

The scope of an intellect is not to be measured with a tape-string, or a character deciphered from the shape or length of a nose.

— Christian Nestell Bovee

The great obstacle to progress is prejudice.

— Christian Nestell Bovee

At all events, the next best thing to being witty one's self, is to be able to quote another's wit.

— Christian Nestell Bovee

Loss of sincerity is loss of vital power.

— Christian Nestell Bovee

When all else is lost, the future still remains.

— Christian Nestell Bovee