..Fell over the prostrate steersman, and there we all lay…

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…

— Thomas Bailey Aldrich

There is no man at once so unselfish and selfish as a man in love.

— Thomas Bailey Aldrich

I have frequently noticed how circumstances conspire to help a man, or a boy, when he has thoroughly resolved on doing a thing.

— Thomas Bailey Aldrich

Everywhere on the Continent, the tourist is looked upon as a bird to be plucked, and presently the bird himself feebly comes to regard…

— Thomas Bailey Aldrich

Imagine all human beings swept off the face of the earth, excepting one man. Imagine this man in some vast city, New York or…

— Thomas Bailey Aldrich

The possession of gold has ruined fewer men than the lack of it.

— Thomas Bailey Aldrich

A man should have duties outside of himself; without them, he is a mere balloon, inflated with thin egotism and drifting nowhere.

— Thomas Bailey Aldrich

Great thoughts in crude, unshapely verse set forth lose half their preciousness, and ever must, unless the diamond with its own rich dust be…

— Thomas Bailey Aldrich

So I sit there kicked my heels, thinking about New Orleans, and watching a morbid blue-bottle fly attempt to commit suicide by butting his…

— Thomas Bailey Aldrich

What is more cheerful, now, in the fall of the year, than an open-wood-fire? Do you hear those little chirps and twitters coming out…

— Thomas Bailey Aldrich

Decoration Day is the most beautiful of our national holidays… The grim cannon have turned into palm branches, and the shell and shrapnel into…

— Thomas Bailey Aldrich

Famous old houses seem to have an intuitive perception of the value of corner lots. If it is a possible thing, they always set…

— Thomas Bailey Aldrich

Every man has within himself a gold mine whose riches are limited only by his own industry.

— Thomas Bailey Aldrich

The fate of the worm refutes the pretended ethical teaching of the proverb, which assumes to illustrate the advantage of early rising and does…

— Thomas Bailey Aldrich

Sorrow itself is not so hard to bear As the thought of sorrow coming. Airy ghosts, That work no harm, do terrify us more…

— Thomas Bailey Aldrich