Christian Nestell Bovee (February 22, 1820 – January 18, 1904) was an epigrammatic New York City writer. He was born in New York City.
Heaven lent you a soul, Earth will lend a grave.
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.
The next best thing to being witty one's self, is to be able to be able to quote another's wit.
All power is indeed weak compared with that of the thinker. He sits upon the throne of his Empire of Thought, mightier far than they who wield material sceptres.
The knowledge beyond all other knowledge is the knowledge how to excuse.
Hunting is a relic of the barbarism that once thirsted for human blood, but is now content with the blood of animals.
Youth is too tumultuous for felicity; old age too insecure for happiness. The period most favorable to enjoyment, in a vigorous, fortunate, and generous life, is that between forty and sixty.
It is seldom that we find out how great are our resources until we are thrown upon them.
Luminous quotations, also, atone, by their interest, for the dulness of an inferior book, and add to the value of a superior work by the variety which they lend to its style and treatment.
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.
Hard workers are usually honest; industry lifts them above temptation.
There will always be romance in the world so long as there are young hearts in it.
The cure for tender sensibilities is to make more of our objects and less of our selves.
To be without sympathy is to be alone in the world--without friends or country, home or kindred.
Within the sacred walls of libraries we find the best thoughts, the purest feelings, and the most exalted imaginings of our race.
It is one of the arts of a great beauty to heighten the effect of her charms by affecting to be sweetly unconscious of them.
To quote copiously and well, requires taste, judgment, and erudition, a feeling for the beautiful, an appreciation of the noble, and a sense of the profound.
The worth of a book is a matter of expressed juices.
The opinions of the misanthropical rest upon this very partial basis, that they adopt the bad faith of a few as evidence of the worthlessness of all.
It is the life of democracy to favor equality.