There must be such a thing as a child with average ability, but you can't find a parent who will admit that it is his child. Thomas Bailey Aldrich More Quotes by Thomas Bailey Aldrich More Quotes From Thomas Bailey Aldrich To keep the heart unwrinkled, to be hopeful, kindly, cheerful, reverent that is to triumph over old age. Thomas Bailey Aldrich hopeheartbirthday They fail, and they alone, who have not striven. Thomas Bailey Aldrich failurefearinspirational What is lovely never dies, but passes into other loveliness, Star-dust, or sea-foam, flower or winged air. Thomas Bailey Aldrich beautysympathylove The fanatic 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 death-penaltyintolerancemurder True art selects and paraphrases, but seldom gives a verbatim translation. Thomas Bailey Aldrich generositygivingart A man is known by the company his mind keeps. Thomas Bailey Aldrich companymindmen 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 memorial-dayupliftingbeautiful 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 imaginationmindwings Civilization is the lamb's skin in which barbarism masquerades. Thomas Bailey Aldrich skinsinspirationalcivilization O Liberty, white Goddess! is it well to leave the gates unguarded? On thy breast fold Sorrow's children, soothe the hurts of Fate, lift the down-trodden, but with hand of steel stay those who to thy sacred portals come to waste the gifts of Freedom. Thomas Bailey Aldrich fatehurtchildren 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 summerspringfall What is slang in one age sometimes goes into the vocabulary of the purist in the next. Thomas Bailey Aldrich nextvocabularyage Those forms we fancy shadows, those strange lights That flash on dank morasses, the quick wind That smites us by the roadside—are the Night's Innumerable children. Unconfined By shroud or coffin, disembodied souls, Uneasy spirits, steal into the air From festering graveyards when the curfew tolls At the day's death... And wheresoever murders have been done, In stately palaces or lonesome woods, Where'er a soul has sold itself and lost Its high inheritance, there, hovering, broods Some sad, invisible, accurséd Ghost! Thomas Bailey Aldrich lightnightchildren The ring of a false coin is not more recognizable than that of a rhyme setting forth a false sorrow. Thomas Bailey Aldrich coinssorrowhypocrisy The walking delegates of a higher civilization, who have nothing to divide, look upon the notion of property as a purely artificial creation of human society. According to these advanced philosophers, the time will come when no man shall be allowed to call anything his. The beneficent law which takes away an author's rights in his own books just at the period when old age is creeping upon him seems to me a handsome stride toward the longed-for millennium. Thomas Bailey Aldrich rightsmenbook Shakespeare is forever coming into our affairs -- putting in his oar, so to speak -- with some pat word or sentence. Thomas Bailey Aldrich affairspeakforever Everyone has a bookplate these days, and the collectors are after it. The fool and his bookplate are soon parted. To distribute one's ex libris is inanely to destroy the only significance it has, that of indicating the past or present ownership of the volume in which it is placed. Thomas Bailey Aldrich ownershipfoolpast O Liberty...! is it well To leave the gates unguarded? Thomas Bailey Aldrich wellslibertyfreedom How fugitive and brief is mortal life between the budding and the falling leaf. Thomas Bailey Aldrich leafslifefall 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 generationsshadowvoice
