Today marks the birthday of Martin Farquhar Tupper (1810–89,) a 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.
Inspirational Quotations by Martin Farquhar Tupper
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 (English Poet)
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 (English Poet)
Wealth hath never given happiness, but often hastened misery; enough hath never caused misery, but often quickened happiness.
—Martin Farquhar Tupper (English Poet)
A good book is the best of friends, the same today and forever.
—Martin Farquhar Tupper (English Poet)
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 (English Poet)
Humility mainly becometh the converse of man with his Maker.
—Martin Farquhar Tupper (English Poet)
Ideas, though vivid and real, are often indefinite, and are shy of the close furniture of words.
—Martin Farquhar Tupper (English Poet)
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 (English Poet)
Memory, the daughter of attention, is the teeming mother of knowledge.
—Martin Farquhar Tupper (English Poet)
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 (English Poet)
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 (English Poet)
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 (English Poet)
Memory is not wisdom; idiots can by rote repeat volumes.—Yet what is wisdom without memory?
—Martin Farquhar Tupper (English Poet)