A great man is the man who does something for the first time.
Alexander Smith

A man doesn't plant a tree for himself. He plants it for posterity.
Alexander Smith

A man gazing on the stars is proverbially at the mercy of the puddles in the road.
Alexander Smith

A man's real possession is his memory. In nothing else is he rich, in nothing else is he poor.
Alexander Smith

Books are a finer world within the world.
Alexander Smith

Christmas is the day that holds all time together.
Alexander Smith

Death is the ugly fact which Nature has to hide, and she hides it well.
Alexander Smith

Every man's road in life is marked by the graves of his personal liking.
Alexander Smith

Everything is sweetened by risk.
Alexander Smith

How deeply seated in the human heart is the liking for gardens and gardening.
Alexander Smith


I go into my library and all history unrolls before me.
Alexander Smith

I would rather be remembered by a song than by a victory.
Alexander Smith

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.
Alexander Smith

If you do your fair day's work, you are certain to get your fair day's wage - in praise or pudding, whichever happens to suit your taste.
Alexander Smith

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.
Alexander Smith

If you wish to preserve your secret, wrap it up in frankness.
Alexander Smith

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.
Alexander Smith

Love is but the discovery of ourselves in others, and the delight in the recognition.
Alexander Smith

The dead keep their secrets, and in a while we shall be as wise as they - and as taciturn.
Alexander Smith

The man who in this world can keep the whiteness of his soul is not likely to lose it in any other.
Alexander Smith