Alexander Smith

“Sweet April's tears, Dead on the hem of May.”

“In life there is nothing more unexpected and surprising than the arrivals and departures of pleasure. If we find it in one place today, it is vain to seek it there tomorrow. You can not lay a trap for it.”

“The saddest thing that befalls a soul is when it loses faith in god and woman.”

“Trifles make up the happiness or the misery of human life.”

“We bury love; Forgetfulness grows over it like grass: That is a thing to weep for, not the dead.”

“If the egotist is weak, his egotism is worthless. If the egotist is strong, acute, full of distinctive character, his egotism is precious, and remains a possession of the race.”

“If you wish to make a man look noble, your best course is to kill him. What superiority he may have inherited from his race, what superiority nature may have personally gifted him with, comes out in death.”

“We are never happy; we can only remember that we were so once.”

“Books are a finer world within the world. (1863)”

“In my garden I spend my days, in my library I spend my nights. My interests are divided between my geraniums and my books. With the flower I am in the present; with the book I am in the past.”

“To be occasionally quoted is the only fame I care for.”

“Memory is a mans real possession....in nothing else is he rich....in nothing else is he poor.”

“Love is the discovery of ourselves in others, and the delight in the recognition.”