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Thomas Bailey Aldrich
51 quotes
“In her eyes a thought Grew sweet and sweeter, deepening like the dawn— A mystical forewarning!”
Thomas Bailey Aldrich (1836–1907) first seen 1861 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Pythagoras", Pampinea and Other Poems (New York: Budd & Carleton, 1861), p. 19
“What is more cheerful, now, in the fall of the year, than an open-wood-fire? Do you hear those little chirps and twitters coming out of that piece of apple-wood? Those are the ghosts of the robins and blue-birds that sang upon the bough when it was in blossom last Spring. In Summer whole flocks of them come fluttering about the fruit-trees under the window: so I have singing birds all the year round.”
Thomas Bailey Aldrich (1836–1907) first seen 1873 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Miss Mehetabel's Son", Marjorie Daw and Other People (Boston: James R. Osgood and Company, 1873), p. 168
“The ability to secure your own way and yet impress others with the idea that they are having their own way is rare among men; in women it is as common as eyebrows.”
Thomas Bailey Aldrich (1836–1907) first seen 1877 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Queen of Sheba (Boston: James R. Osgood and Company, 1877), ch. I. "Mary", p. 16
“We weep when we are born, not when we die!”
Thomas Bailey Aldrich (1836–1907) first seen 1882 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Metempsychosis", The Poems of Thomas Bailey Aldrich (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1882), p. 139
“That was indeed to live— At one bold swoop to wrest From darkling death the best That Death to Life can give!”
Thomas Bailey Aldrich (1836–1907) first seen 1897 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: An Ode on the Unveiling of the Shaw Memorial on Boston Common. May Thirty-First, 1897", The Poems of Thomas Bailey Aldrich, Vol. II (Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1897), p. 207
“My father invested his money so securely in the banking business that he was never able to get any of it out again.”
Thomas Bailey Aldrich (1836–1907) said by 1907 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We visit […] a neighboring graveyard. I am by this time in a condition of mind to become a willing inmate of the place.”
Thomas Bailey Aldrich (1836–1907) said by 1907 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is the Lord's Day, and I do believe that cheerful hearts and faces are not unpleasant in His sight.”
Thomas Bailey Aldrich (1836–1907) said by 1907 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There's a special Providence that watches over idiots, drunken men, and boys.”
Thomas Bailey Aldrich (1836–1907) said by 1907 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Somewhere—in desolate wind-swept space— In Twilight-land—in No-man’s land— Two hurrying Shapes met face to face, And bade each other stand. “And who are you?” cried one, a-gape, Shuddering in the gloaming light. “I know not,” said the second Shape, “I only died last night!”
Thomas Bailey Aldrich (1836–1907) said by 1907 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Black Tragedy lets slip her grim disguise And shows you laughing lips and rougish eyes. But when, unmasked, gay Comedy appears, 'Tis ten to one you find the girl in tears.”
Thomas Bailey Aldrich (1836–1907) said by 1907 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Or light or dark, or short or tall, She sets a springe to snare them all: All's one to her—above her fan She'd make sweet eyes at Caliban.”
Thomas Bailey Aldrich (1836–1907) said by 1907 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“They fail, and they alone, who have not striven.”
Thomas Bailey Aldrich (1836–1907) said by 1907 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If you chance to live in a town where the authorities cannot rest until they have destroyed every precious tree within their blighting reach, you will be especially charmed by the beauty of the streets of Portsmouth. In some parts of the town, when the chestnuts are in blossom, you would fancy yourself in a garden in fairyland.”
Thomas Bailey Aldrich (1836–1907) said by 1907 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When Washington visited Portsmouth in 1789 he was not much impressed by the architecture of the little town that had stood by him so stoutly in the struggle for independence.”
Thomas Bailey Aldrich (1836–1907) said by 1907 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Famous old houses seem to have an intuitive perception of the value of corner lots. If it is a possible thing, they always set themselves down on the most desirable spot.”
Thomas Bailey Aldrich (1836–1907) said by 1907 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Dwellers by the sea are generally superstitious; sailors always are. There is something in the illimitable expanse of sky and water that dilates the imagination.”
Thomas Bailey Aldrich (1836–1907) said by 1907 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Conservatism and respectability have their values, certainly; but has not the unconventional its values also?”
Thomas Bailey Aldrich (1836–1907) said by 1907 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“What is lovely never dies, But passes into other loveliness, Star-dust, or sea-foam, or wingëd air.”
Thomas Bailey Aldrich (1836–1907) said by 1907 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“O harp of life, so speedily unstrung!”
Thomas Bailey Aldrich (1836–1907) said by 1907 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Dear Lord, though I be changed to senseless clay. And serve the potter as he turns his wheel, I thank thee for the precious gift of tears!”
Thomas Bailey Aldrich (1836–1907) said by 1907 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“So precious life is! Even to the old The hours are as a miser’s coins!”
Thomas Bailey Aldrich (1836–1907) said by 1907 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Here is woe, a self and not the mask of woe.”
Thomas Bailey Aldrich (1836–1907) said by 1907 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When friends are at your hearthside met, Sweet courtesy has done its most If you have made each guest forget That he himself is not the host.”
Thomas Bailey Aldrich (1836–1907) said by 1907 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If my best wines mislike thy taste, And my best service win thy frown, Then tarry not, I bid thee haste; There's many another Inn in town.”
Thomas Bailey Aldrich (1836–1907) said by 1907 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The man who suspects his own tediousness is yet to be born.”
Thomas Bailey Aldrich (1836–1907) said by 1907 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Humor is a delicate shrub, with the passing hectic flush of its time. The current-topic variety is especially subject to early frosts, as is also the dialectic species.”
Thomas Bailey Aldrich (1836–1907) said by 1907 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“After a debauch of thunder-shower, the weather takes the pledge and signs it with a rainbow.”
Thomas Bailey Aldrich (1836–1907) said by 1907 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I like to have a thing suggested rather than told in full. When every detail is given, the mind rests satisfied, and the imagination loses the desire to use its own wings.”
Thomas Bailey Aldrich (1836–1907) said by 1907 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Books that have become classics—books that have had their day and now get more praise than perusal—always remind me of venerable colonels and majors and captains who, having reached the age limit, find themselves retired on half pay.”
Thomas Bailey Aldrich (1836–1907) said by 1907 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The possession of gold has ruined fewer men than the lack of it. What noble enterprises have been checked and what fine souls have been blighted in the gloom of poverty the world will never know.”
Thomas Bailey Aldrich (1836–1907) said by 1907 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Dialect tempered with slang is an admirable medium of communication between persons who have nothing to say and persons who would not care for anything properly said.”
Thomas Bailey Aldrich (1836–1907) said by 1907 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The possession of unlimited power will make a despot of almost any man. There is a possible Nero in the gentlest human creature that walks.”
Thomas Bailey Aldrich (1836–1907) said by 1907 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Between the reputation of the author living and the reputation of the same author dead there is ever a wide discrepancy.”
Thomas Bailey Aldrich (1836–1907) said by 1907 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Great orators who are not also great writers become very indistinct shadows to the generations following them. The spell vanishes with the voice.”
Thomas Bailey Aldrich (1836–1907) said by 1907 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The laurels of an orator who is not a master of literary art wither quickly.”
Thomas Bailey Aldrich (1836–1907) said by 1907 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“All the best sands of my life are somehow getting into the wrong end of the hour-glass. If I could only reverse it! Were it in my power to do so, would I?”
Thomas Bailey Aldrich (1836–1907) said by 1907 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Shakespeare is forever coming into our affairs—putting in his oar, so to speak—with some pat word or sentence.”
Thomas Bailey Aldrich (1836–1907) said by 1907 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There is always a heavy demand for fresh mediocrity. In every generation the least cultivated taste has the largest appetite.”
Thomas Bailey Aldrich (1836–1907) said by 1907 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“He has the courage of his conviction and the intolerance of his courage. He is opposed to the death penalty for murder, but he would willingly have anyone electrocuted who disagreed with him on the subject.”
Thomas Bailey Aldrich (1836–1907) said by 1907 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A man is known by the company his mind keeps.”
Thomas Bailey Aldrich (1836–1907) said by 1907 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“True art selects and paraphrases, but seldom gives a verbatim translation.”
Thomas Bailey Aldrich (1836–1907) said by 1907 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Civilization is the lamb's skin in which barbarism masquerades.”
Thomas Bailey Aldrich (1836–1907) said by 1907 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“What is slang in one age sometimes goes into the vocabulary of the purist in the next.”
Thomas Bailey Aldrich (1836–1907) said by 1907 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To keep the heart unwrinkled, to be hopeful, kindly, cheerful, reverent—that is to triumph over old age.”
Thomas Bailey Aldrich (1836–1907) said by 1907 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Decoration Day is the most beautiful of our national holidays.[…] The grim cannon have turned into palm branches, and the shell and shrapnel into peach blossoms.”
Thomas Bailey Aldrich (1836–1907) said by 1907 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The fate of the worm refutes the pretended ethical teaching of the proverb which assumes to illustrate the advantage of early rising and does so by showing how extremely dangerous it is.”
Thomas Bailey Aldrich (1836–1907) said by 1907 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is only your habitual late riser who takes in the full flavor of Nature at those rare intervals when he gets up to go a-fishing. He brings virginal emotions and unsatiated eyes to the sparkling freshness of earth and stream and sky.”
Thomas Bailey Aldrich (1836–1907) said by 1907 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The ring of a false coin is not more recognizable than that of a rhyme setting forth a simulated sorrow.”
Thomas Bailey Aldrich (1836–1907) said by 1907 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“My dear Mr. Morse: It was very pleasant to me to get a letter from you the other day. Perhaps I should have found it pleasanter if I had been able to decipher it. I don't think that I mastered anything beyond the date (which I knew) and the signature (which I guessed at). There's a singular and a perpetual charm in a letter of yours; it never grows old, it never loses its novelty. One can say to one's self every morning: "There's that letter of Morse's. I haven't read it yet. I think I'll take another shy at it to-day, and maybe I shall be able in the course of a few years to make out what he means by those t's that look like w's and those i's that haven't any eyebrows." Other letters are read and thrown away and forgotten, but yours are kept forever—unread. One of them will last a reasonable man a lifetime.”
Thomas Bailey Aldrich (1836–1907) first seen 1890 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Edward S. Morse, as reported in Science, Vol. XV. No. 363 (January 17, 1890), "Notes and News", p. 41