Fine Quotes - Page 40

• Nature and books belong to the eyes that see them. It depends on the mood of the man, whether he shall see the sunset or the fine poem. There are always sunsets, and there is always genius; but only a few hours so serene that we can relish nature or criticism. The more or less depends on structure or temperament. Temperament is the iron wire on which the beads are strung. Of what use is fortune or talent to a cold and defective store?

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Appreciation, Book, Sunset

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1937). “Essays, First and Second Series”, p.135, Jazzybee Verlag

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• How much wit, good-nature, indulgences, how many good offices and civilities, are required among friends to accomplish in some years what a lovely face or a fine hand does in a minute!

  Jean de la Bruyere

  Beauty, Hands, Years

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• In a world of hunchbacks, a fine figure becomes a monstrosity.

  Honore de Balzac

  Beauty, World, Figures

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• We must certainly acknowledge that solitude is a fine thing; but it is a pleasure to have some one who can answer, and to whom we can say, from time to time, that solitude is a fine thing.

  Honore de Balzac

  Solitude, Answers, Pleasure

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• One of the glories of society is to have created woman where Nature had made only a female; to have created a continuity of desire where Nature thought only of perpetuating the species; and, in fine, to have invented love.

  Honore de Balzac

  Women, Desire, Female

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• We must suit the flattery to the mind and taste of the recipient. We do not put essences into hogsheads, nor porter into phials. Delicate minds may be disgusted by compliments that would please a grosser intellect; as some fine ladies who would be shocked at the idea of a dram will not refuse a liqueur.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Essence, Ideas, Mind

  Charles Caleb Colton (1821). “Lacon: or, Many things in few words”, p.190

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• Fine taste is an aspect of genius itself, and is the faculty of delicate appreciation, which makes the best effects of art our own.

  Nathaniel Parker Willis

  Appreciation, Art, Genius

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• Writers ... I think ... live on that fine line between insanity and genius.

  Nikki Giovanni

  Thinking, Insanity, Genius

  Nikki Giovanni (1983). “Those who ride the night winds”, William Morrow & Co

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• Freedom of speech is the great bulwark of liberty; they prosper and die together: And it is the terror of traitors and oppressors, and a barrier against them. It produces excellent writers, and encourages men of fine genius.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Men, Freedom Of Speech, Liberty

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• Pride is as loud a beggar as want, and a great deal more saucy. When you have bought one fine thing, you must buy ten more, that your appearance may be all of a piece; but it is easier to suppress the first desire than to satisfy all that follow it.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Pride, Desire, Pieces

  Benjamin Franklin (1836). “The Works of Benjamin Franklin; Containing Several Political and Historical Tracts Not Included in Any Former Edition, and Many Letters, Official and Private, Not Hitherto Published; with Notes and a Life of the Author”, p.100

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• There is much money given to be laughed at, though the purchasers don't know it; witness A.'s fine horse, and B.'s fine house.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Horse, Vanity, House

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• A man who has any relish for fine writing either discovers new beauties or receives stronger impressions from the masterly strokes of a great author every time he peruses him; besides that he naturally wears himself into the same manner of speaking and thinking.

  Joseph Addison

  Reading, Writing, Men

  Joseph Addison, Sir Richard Steele (1832). “The British Essayists: Containing the Spectator, with Notes and General Index, and the Tatler and Guardian, with Notes and General Index”

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• A fine coat is but a livery when the person who wears it discovers no higher sense than that of a footman.

  Joseph Addison

  Coats, Higher, Persons

  Joseph Addison, Sir Richard Steele (1852). “The Spectator”, p.192

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• To this end, nothing is to be more carefully consulted than plainness. In a lady's attire this is the single excellence; for to be what some people call fine, is the same vice, in that case, as to be florid is in writing or speaking.

  Joseph Addison

  Writing, People, Excellence

  Sir Richard Steele, Joseph Addison (1829). “The Tatler and the Guardian: Complete in One Volume, with Notes, and a General Index”, p.388

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• That fine part of our construction, the eye, seems as much the receptacle and seat of our passions as the mind itself; and at least it is the outward portal to introduce them to the house within, or rather the common thoroughfare to let our affections pass in and out.

  Joseph Addison

  Passion, Eye, House

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• A virtuous mind in a fair body is indeed a fine picture in a good light, and therefore it is no wonder that it makes the beautiful sex all over charms.

  Joseph Addison

  Beautiful, Sex, Women

  Joseph Addison (2017). “Delphi Complete Works of Joseph Addison (Illustrated)”, p.3311, Delphi Classics

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• You talk to me in parables.
  You may have known that I'm no wordy man,
  Fine speeches are the instruments of knaves
  Or fools that use them, when they want good sense;
  But honesty
  Needs no disguise nor ornament: be plain.

  Thomas Otway

  Honesty, Men, Needs

  William Congreve, James Miller, Henry Fielding, David Garrick, Thomas Southern (1815). “The Mourning Bride. A Tragedy”

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• The mind is sicker than the sick body; in contemplation of its sufferings it becomes hopeless.
  [Lat., Corpore sed mens est aegro magis aegra; malique
  In circumspectu stat sine fine sui.]

  Ovid

  Sick, Mind, Suffering

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• Tis chiefly taste, or blunt, or gross, or fine,
  Makes life insipid, bestial, or divine.
  Better be born with taste to little rent
  Than the dull monarch of a continent;
  Without this bounty which the gods bestow,
  Can Fortune make one favorite happy?
  No.

  John Armstrong

  Dull, Littles, Taste

  John Armstrong, Samuel Johnson (1822). “The Poems of Armstrong and Johnson”, p.89

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• The only gain from the friendship of the great is a fine dinner.

  Juvenal

  Dinner, Gains

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• A fine lady; by which term I wish to express the result of that perfect education in taste and manner, down to every gesture, which heaven forbid that I, professing to be a poet, should undervalue. It is beautiful, and therefore I welcome it in the name of the author of all beauty. I value it so highly that I would fain see it extend not merely from Belgravia to the tradesman's villa, but thence, as I believe it one day will, to the laborer's hovel and the needlewoman's garret.

  Charles Kingsley

  Beautiful, Believe, Names

  Charles Kingsley (1862). “Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet: An Autobiograhpy”, p.117

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• I believe - indeed, I know - that whatever is fine and beautiful in the human expresses and asserts itself in spite of government, and not because of it.

  Emma Goldman

  Beautiful, Believe, Government

  Emma Goldman, Candace Falk (2008). “Emma Goldman”, p.341, University of Illinois Press

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• Jealousy is the very reverse of understanding, of sympathy, and of generous feeling. Never has jealousy added to character, never does it make the individual big and fine.

  Emma Goldman

  Jealousy, Character, Understanding

  Emma Goldman (2016). “Anarchy and the Sex Question: Essays on Women and Emancipation, 1896–1926”, p.88, PM Press

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• Who sweeps a room, as for Thy laws, makes that and the action fine.

  George Herbert

  Law, Rooms, Action

  George Herbert (1838). “The Temple. Sacred poems and private ejaculations, etc”, p.195

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• Dogs are fine in the field.

  George Herbert

  Dog, Fields

  George Herbert (1861). “The Poetical Works of G. H. and R. Heber. With Memoir”, p.272

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