Christian Nestell Bovee (February 22, 1820 – January 18, 1904) was an epigrammatic New York City writer. He was born in New York City.
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.
The trouble with men of sense is that they are so dreadfully in earnest all the while.
There would not be so much harm in the giddy following the fashions, if somehow the wise could always set them.
What we call conscience in many instances, is only a wholesome fear of the law.
The loveliest faces are to be seen by moonlight, when one sees half with the eye and half with the fancy.
Economy is for the poor; the rich may dispense with it.
Excessive sensibility is only another name for morbid self-consciousness.
There is probably no hell for authors in the next world - they suffer so much from critics and publishers in this.
It is of very little use in trying to be dignified, if dignity is no part of your character.
We cannot reason ourselves into love, nor can we reason ourselves out of it, which suggests that love and reason have little to do with each other.
Truth, like the sun, submits to be obscured; but, like the sun, only for a time.
The light in the world comes principally from two sources,-the sun, and the student's lamp.
A mother is the best friend God ever gave.
Love delights in paradoxes. Saddest when it has most reason to be gay, sighs are the signs of its deepest joy, and silence is the expression of its yearning tenderness.
Courage enlarges, cowardice diminishes resources.
Beauty can afford to laugh at distinctions: it is itself the greatest distinction.
Great warriors, like great earthquakes, are principally remembered for the mischief they have done.
Can that which is the greatest virtue in philosophy, doubt (called by Galileo the father of invention), be in religion what the priests term it, the greatest of sins?
Cheerfulness is an offshoot of goodness and of wisdom.
Words, like cannon balls, should go direct to their mark.