Top 80 Alexander Smith Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Christmas is the day that holds all time together.”

— Alexander Smith

2. “A man’s real possession is his memory. In nothing else is he rich, in nothing else is he poor.”

— Alexander Smith

3. “Everything is sweetened by risk.”

— Alexander Smith

4. “In the entire circle of the year there are no days so delightful as those of a fine October.”

— Alexander Smith

5. “My friend is not perfect-no more than I am-and so we suit each other admirable.”

— Alexander Smith

6. “A bottomless pit of violence, a Tower of Babel where all are speakers and no hearers.”

— Alexander Smith

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

— Alexander Smith

8. “A man does not plant a tree for himself; he plants it for posterity.”

— Alexander Smith

9. “The dead keep their secrets, and in a while we shall be as wise as they – and as taciturn.”

— Alexander Smith

10. “A tender sadness drops upon my soul, like the soft twilight dropping on the world.”

— Alexander Smith

11. “The sea complains upon a thousand shores.”

— Alexander Smith

12. “A man gazing at the stars is proverbially at the mercy of the puddles in the road.”

— Alexander Smith

13. “Happiness never lays its finger on its pulse. If we attempt to steal a glimpse of its features it disappears.”

— Alexander Smith

14. “If you wish to preserve your secret, wrap it up in frankness.”

— Alexander Smith

15. “In my garden I spend my days; in my library I spend my nights.”

— Alexander Smith

16. “Pleasure has no logic; it never treads in its own footsteps.”

— Alexander Smith

17. “Every day travels toward death; the last only arrives at it.”

— Alexander Smith

18. “A great man is the man who does something for the first time.”

— Alexander Smith

19. “There is no ghost so difficult to lay as the ghost of an injury.”

— Alexander Smith

20. “If a man is worth knowing at all, he is worth knowing well.”

— Alexander Smith

21. “I go into my library and all history unrolls before me.”

— Alexander Smith

22. “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

23. “There is nothing good in this world which time does not improve.”

— Alexander Smith

24. “Stirling, like a huge brooch, clasps Highlands and Lowlands together.”

— Alexander Smith

25. “To-day is always different from yesterday.”

— Alexander Smith

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

— Alexander Smith

27. “Looking forward into an empty year strikes one with a certain awe, because one finds therein no recognition. The years behind have a friendly aspect, and they are warmed by the fires we have kindled, and all their echoes are the echoes of our own voices.”

— Alexander Smith

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

— Alexander Smith

29. “In my garden, care stops at the gate and gazes at me wistfully through the bars.”

— Alexander Smith

30. “There is a certain even-handed justice in Time; and for what he takes away he gives us something in return. He robs us of elasticity of limb and spirit, and in its place he brings tranquility and repose – the mild autumnal weather of the soul.”

— Alexander Smith

31. “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.”

— Alexander Smith

32. “My heart like moon-charmed waters, all unrest...”

— Alexander Smith

33. “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

34. “Yet through all, we know this tangled skein is in the hands of One, Who sees the end from the beginning: He shall unravel all.”

— Alexander Smith

35. “Fine phrases I value more than bank-notes. I have ear for no other harmony than the harmony of words. To be occasionally quoted is the only fame I care for.”

— Alexander Smith

36. “Fame is but an inscription on a grave, and glory the melancholy blazon on a coffin lid.”

— Alexander Smith

37. “Death is the ugly fact which Nature has to hide, and she hides it well.”

— Alexander Smith

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

— Alexander Smith

39. “Trees are your best antiques.”

— Alexander Smith

40. “The globe has been circumnavigated, but no man ever yet has; you may survey a kingdom and note the result in maps, but all the savants in the world could not produce a reliable map of the poorest human personality.”

— Alexander Smith

41. “Every man’s road in life is marked by the grave of his personal likings.”

— Alexander Smith

42. “We twain have met like the ships upon the sea, Who behold an hour’s converse, so short, so sweet: One little hour! and then, away they speed On lonely paths, through mist, and cloud, and foam, To meet no more.”

— Alexander Smith

43. “My garden, with its silence and pulses of fragrance that come and go on the airy undulations, affects me like sweet music. Care stops at the gates, and gazes at me wistfully through the bars.”

— Alexander Smith

44. “A poem round and perfect as a star.”

— Alexander Smith

45. “The greatness of an artist or a writer does not depend on what he has in common with other artists and writers, but on what he has peculiar to himself.”

— Alexander Smith

46. “Failure and success are not accidents, but the strictest justice.”

— Alexander Smith

47. “Eternity doth wear upon her face the veil of time. They only see the veil, and thus they know not what they stand so near!”

— Alexander Smith

48. “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

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

— Alexander Smith

50. “I would rather be remembered by a song than by a victory.”

— Alexander Smith