Martin Farquhar Tupper (1810–89) was prolific British verse and prose writer. Tupper is best known for his Proverbial Philosophy (1838–76, four series,) which consists of adages, maxims, and didactic lectures presented in loosely lyrical form. It was a bestseller in Britain and America for 30 years but then became the subject of many clever—and malicious—parodies. Tupper also published the novels The Crock of Gold (1844,) Stephan Langton (1858) and other written works.
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Love is the weapon which Omnipotence reserved to conquer rebel man when all the rest had failed. Reason he parries; fear he answers blow for blow; future interest he meets with present pleasure; but love is that sun against whose melting beams the winter cannot stand. There is not one human being in a million, nor a thousand men in all earth’s huge quintiilion whose clay heart is hardened against love.
—Martin Farquhar Tupper
Topics: Love
Memory, the daughter of attention, is the teeming mother of knowledge.
—Martin Farquhar Tupper
Topics: Memory
A good book is the best of friends, the same today and forever.
—Martin Farquhar Tupper
Topics: Books, Reading
Many a beggar at the crossway, or gray-haired shepherd on the plain, hath more of the end of all wealth than hundreds who multiply the means.
—Martin Farquhar Tupper
Topics: Wealth
Wealth hath never given happiness, but often hastened misery; enough hath never caused misery, but often quickened happiness.
—Martin Farquhar Tupper
Topics: Wealth
Ideas, though vivid and real, are often indefinite, and are shy of the close furniture of words.
—Martin Farquhar Tupper
Topics: Ideas
He who commits a wrong will himself inevitably see the writing on the wall, though the world may not count him guilty.
—Martin Farquhar Tupper
Topics: Conscience
Deep is the sea, and deep is hell, but pride mineth deeper; it is coiled as a poisonous worm about the foundations of the soul.
—Martin Farquhar Tupper
Topics: Pride
Memory is not wisdom; idiots can by rote repeat volumes.—Yet what is wisdom without memory?
—Martin Farquhar Tupper
Topics: Memory
Humility mainly becometh the converse of man with his Maker.
—Martin Farquhar Tupper
Topics: Humility
Know thyself, thine evil as well as thy good, and flattery shall not harm thee; her speech shall be a warning, a humbling, and a guide; for wherein thou lackest most, there chiefly will thy sycophant commend thee.
—Martin Farquhar Tupper
Topics: Flattery
The choicest pleasures of life lie within the ring of moderation.
—Martin Farquhar Tupper
Topics: Moderation
Reflection is a flower of the mind, giving out wholesome fragrance; but revery is the same flower, when rank and running to seed.
—Martin Farquhar Tupper
Topics: Reflection
I have sped much by land, and sea, and mingled with much people, but never yet could find a spot unsunned by human kindness.
—Martin Farquhar Tupper
Topics: Kindness
Well-timed silence hath more eloquence than speech.
—Martin Farquhar Tupper
Topics: Time
Anger is a noble infirmity; the generous failing of the just; the one degree that riseth above zeal, asserting the prerogative of virtue.
—Martin Farquhar Tupper
Topics: Anger
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