Alexander Smith
The discovery of a grey hair when you are brushing out your whiskers of a morning - first fallen flake of the coming snows of age - is a disagreeable thing.Collection: Morning
Not on the stage alone, in the world also, a man's real character comes out best in his asides.Collection: Real
Death, which we are accustomed to consider an evil, really acts for us the friendliest part, and takes away the commonplace of existence.Collection: Death
Your death and my death are mainly of importance to ourselves. The black plumes will be stripped off our hearses within the hour; tears will dry, hurt hearts close again, our graves grow level with the church-yard, and although we are away, the world wags on. It does not miss us; and those who are near us, when the first strangeness of vacancy wears off, will not miss us much either.Collection: Hurt
The only thing a man knows is himself.Collection: Men
A poem round and perfect as a star.Collection: Stars
And in any case, to the old man, when the world becomes trite, the triteness arises not so much from a cessation as from a transference of interest. What is taken from this world is given to the next. The glory is in the east in the morning, it is in the west in the afternoon, and when it is dark the splendour is irradiating the realm of the under-world. He would only follow.Collection: Morning