Quotes by Thomas Aldrich

• 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.
• No bird has ever uttered note That was not in some first bird's throat; Since Eden's freshness and man's fall No rose has been original.
• The man who suspects his own tediousness is yet to be born.
• Civilization is the lamb's skin in which barbarism masquerades.
• The ocean moans over dead men's bones.
• 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.
• They fail, and they alone, who have not striven.
• To keep the heart unwrinkled, to be hopeful, kindly, cheerful, reverent - that is to triumph over old age.
• True art selects and paraphrases, but seldom gives a verbatim translation.
• Books that have become classics - books that have had their day and now get more praise than perusal - always remind me of retired colonels and majors and captains who, having reached the age limit, find themselves retired on half pay.
• What is lovely never dies, put passes into other loveliness.
• A man is known by the company his mind keeps.