Christian Nestell Bovee (February 22, 1820 – January 18, 1904) was an epigrammatic New York City writer. He was born in New York City.
New situations inspire new thoughts. Here is the benefit of travelling, much more than in mere sight-seeing. We lose ourselves in the streets of our own city, and go abroad to find ourselves.
An ambition to excel in petty things obstructs the progress to nobler aims.
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.
Justice, not the majority, should rule.
False friends are like our shadow, keeping close to us while we walk in the sunshine, but leaving us the instant we cross into the shade.
Tranquil pleasures last the longest; we are not fitted to bear the burden of great joys.
Enthusiasm is the inspiration of everything great.
We repose too much upon the actual, when we should be seeking to develop the possibilities of our being. It is true of nearly all of us, that what we have done is little compared with what we might have accomplished, or may hereafter effect.
Neither love nor ambition, as it has often been shown, can brook a division of its empire in the heart.
One must have been, at some time or other, in a situation where a small sum was as necessary almost as life itself, with no more ability to raise it than to raise the dead, before he can fully appreciate the value of money.
To no circumstance is the wide diffusion of error in the world more owing than to our habit of adopting conclusions from insufficiently established data. An indispensable preliminary, then, in every investigation, is to get at facts. Until these are arrived at, every opinion, theory, or system, however ingeniously framed, must necessarily rest upon an uncertain basis.
The highest excellence is seldom attained in more than one vocation. The roads leading to distinction in separate pursuits diverge, and the nearer we approach the one, the farther we recede from the other.
He has but one great fear that fears to do wrong.
Even when we fancy we have grown wiser, it is only, it may be, that new prejudices have displaced old ones.
He half retrieves a defeat who yields to it gracefully.
Some one called Sir Richard Steele the "vilest of mankind," and he retorted with proud humility, "It would be a glorious world if I were.
Books are embalmed minds.
Every trait of beauty may be referred to some virtue, as to innocence, candor, generosity, modesty, or heroism. St. Pierre To cultivate the sense of the beautiful, is one of the most effectual ways of cultivating an appreciation of the divine goodness.
There is no sense of weariness like that which closes in a day of eager and unintermittent pursuit of pleasure. The apple is eaten, but "the core sticks in the throat. " Expectation has then given way to ennui, appetite to satiety.
Six traits of effective leaders: 1. Make others feel important 2. Promote a vision 3. Follow the golden rule 4. Admit mistakes 5. Criticize others only in private 6. Stay close to the action Example has more followers than reason. We unconsciously imitate what pleases us, and approximate to the characters we most admire.