A man doesn't plant a tree for himself. He plants it for posterity.
ALEXANDER SMITH Your death and my death are mainly of importance to ourselves. The black plumes will be stripped off...
ALEXANDER SMITH A man's real possession is his memory. In nothing else is he rich, in nothing else is he poor.
ALEXANDER SMITH The sea complains upon a thousand shores.
ALEXANDER SMITH A man gazing on the stars is proverbially at the mercy of the puddles in the road.
ALEXANDER SMITH I go into my library, and all history unrolls before me. I breathe the morning air of the world whil...
ALEXANDER SMITH Every man's road in life is marked by the grave of his personal likings.
ALEXANDER SMITH If you wish to make a man look noble, your best course is to kill him. What superiority he may have ...
ALEXANDER SMITH Everything is sweetened by risk.
ALEXANDER SMITH To be occasionally quoted is the only fame I care for.
ALEXANDER SMITH If you wish to preserve your secret, wrap it up in frankness.
ALEXANDER SMITH Sweet April's tears, Dead on the hem of May.
ALEXANDER SMITH Every man's road in life is marked by the graves of his personal likings.
ALEXANDER SMITH [Memory is] a man's real possession...In nothing else is he rich, in nothing else is he poor.
ALEXANDER SMITH The pale child, Eve, leading her mother, Night.
ALEXANDER SMITH If the egotist is weak, his egotism is worthless. If the egotist is strong, acute, full of distincti...
ALEXANDER SMITH I would rather be remembered by a song than by a victory.
ALEXANDER SMITH A great man is the man who does something for the first time.
ALEXANDER SMITH Every man's road in life is marked by the graves of his personal liking.
ALEXANDER SMITH We are never happy; we can only remember that we were so once.
ALEXANDER SMITH The saddest thing that befalls a soul is when it loses faith in God and woman.
ALEXANDER SMITH There is no ghost so difficult to lay as the ghost of an injury.
ALEXANDER SMITH In life there is nothing more unexpected and surprising than the arrivals and departures of pleasure...
ALEXANDER SMITH The dead keep their secrets, and in a while we shall be as wise as they - and as taciturn.
ALEXANDER SMITH A man's real possession is his memory. In nothing else is he rich, in nothing else is he poor.
ALEXANDER SMITH I go into my library and all history unrolls before me.
ALEXANDER SMITH The world is not so much in need of new thoughts as that when thought grows old and worn with usage ...
ALEXANDER SMITH Love is but the discovery of ourselves in others, and the delight in the recognition.
ALEXANDER SMITH To sit for one's portrait is like being present at one's own creation.
ALEXANDER SMITH We bury love; Forgetfulness grows over it like grass: That is a thing to weep for, not the dead.
ALEXANDER SMITH Christmas is the day that holds all time together.
ALEXANDER SMITH Trees are your best antiques
ALEXANDER SMITH How deeply seated in the human heart is the liking for gardens and gardening.
ALEXANDER SMITH We bury love; Forgetfulness grows over it like grass: That is a thing to weep for, not the dead
ALEXANDER SMITH There is no ghost so difficult to lay as the ghost of an injury
ALEXANDER SMITH Love is but the discovery of ourselves in others, and the delight in the recognition. -Alexander Sm...
ALEXANDER SMITH Love is but the discovery of ourselves in others, and the delight in the recognition.
ALEXANDER SMITH Trees are your best antiques.
ALEXANDER SMITH We twain have met like the ships upon the sea, Who behold an hour's converse, so short, so sweet: ...
ALEXANDER SMITH We bury love, Forgetfulness grows over it like grass; That is a thing to weep for, not the dea...
ALEXANDER SMITH The sun was down, And all the west was paved with sullen fire. I cried, "Behold! the barren b...
ALEXANDER SMITH If you wish to preserve your secret wrap it up in frankness.
ALEXANDER SMITH A man doesn't plant a tree for himself. He plants it for posterity.
ALEXANDER SMITH We bury love; Forgetfulness grows over it like grass: That is a thing to weep for, not the dead
ALEXANDER SMITH Looking forward into an empty year strikes one with a certain awe, because one finds therein no reco...
ALEXANDER SMITH Stirling, like a huge brooch, clasps Highlands and Lowlands together.
ALEXANDER SMITH Death is the ugly fact which Nature has to hide, and she hides it well.
ALEXANDER SMITH In winter, when the dismal rain comes down in slanting lines, and wind, that grand old harper, smote...
ALEXANDER SMITH The dining hall is the best place to meet people. I know it's hard to do.
ALEXANDER SMITH If you do your fair day's work, you are certain to get your fair day's wage - in praise or pudding, ...
ALEXANDER SMITH Every man's road in life is marked by the graves of his personal liking
ALEXANDER SMITH The man who in this world can keep the whiteness of his soul is not likely to lose it in any other.
ALEXANDER SMITH In life there is nothing more unexpected and surprising than the arrivals and departures of pleasure...
ALEXANDER SMITH Trifles make up the happiness or the misery of human life.
ALEXANDER SMITH Manners are the basic building blocks of civil society.
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH Gracious acceptance is an art - an art which most never bother to cultivate. We think that we have t...
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH Morality is for everybody, and this means that the views of more than one person are needed to creat...
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH When you're scared - and I mean really scared, not just hearing a noise in the night, or standing to...
ALEXANDER GORDON SMITH I would certainly never consider myself a Renaissance Man; I'm not fit to look at the dust from ...
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH New York is a wonderful place to be up, an awful place to be down.
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH One of the most destructive things that's happening in modern society is that we are losing our ...
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH Oh I love gadgets and I pride myself on keeping at the cutting edge of technology.
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH Mma Ramotswe sighed. 'We are all tempted, Mma. We are all tempted when it comes to cake.'

ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH Leave them,” said Isabel. “Jamie can iron them himself. It’s very therapeutic for men to iron....
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH The telling of a story, like virtually everything in this life, was always made all the easier by a ...
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH The Okavango Delta is an astonishing sight: the great Okavango River, rather than flow towards the s...
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH Edinburgh used to be a haughty city.
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH I've certainly always had a very high regard for Botswana and so I paint a very good picture of ...
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH You do not have to ladle on the impasto to make a point about human frailty or ambitions.
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH Fiction is able to encompass books that are bleak and which dwell on the manifold and terrible probl...
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH You can go through life and make new friends every year - every month practically - but there was ne...
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH The local community is very important in one's life; the feelings of identification with a place...
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH You should have seen him,” she said. “A real ladies’ man. Stuff in his hair. Dark glasses. Fan...
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH But you cannot expect every writer to dwell on human suffering. I think my books do deal with grave ...
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH If you lose sight of the smaller accomplishments, you end up with an imbalance in your life.
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH I have three older sisters, so we were a reasonably large family and, in general, a happy one.
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH It is sometimes easier to be happy if you don't know everything.
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH As a writer I've learned certain lessons. One of them is to be careful about how you put a view,...
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH That was what counted, she told herself: those unexpected moments of appreciation, unanticipated gli...
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH So it was in Botswana, almost everywhere; ties of kinship, no matter how attenuated by distance or t...
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH We find what we are looking for in life, her father had once said to her, which was true—if you lo...
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH His life was unrecorded; who is there to write down the lives of ordinary people?
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH That of all people, it should be him; that took her aback. That the heart should settle on somebody ...
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH He had been thinking of how landscape moulds a language. It was impossible to imagine these hills gi...
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH I think people in Botswana are pleased that my books paint a positive picture of their lives and por...
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH Irene gasped. "Have you taken leave of your senses, Stuart?" she hissed. "Have you?"
Stuart clo...
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH Teachers were not allowed to beat children as they did in the past, although, Mma Ramotswe reflected...
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH …people decided what they thought and would not be moved, not even by the most patient, the most r...
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH Mma Makutsi had overheard this remark and had been so cross that her glasses misted over; that was a...
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH She hoped that her baby was happy and would be waiting for her when she herself left Botswana and we...
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH Africa was full of people in need of help and there had to be a limit. You simply could not help eve...
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH …products of soulless machines and relentless globalization…
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH There were some people, it seemed, who were incapable of being pleasant about anything. Of course, t...
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH She was made for untidy rooms and rumpled beds.
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH Regular maps have few surprises: their contour lines reveal where the Andes are, and are reasonably ...
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH She had argued for a broad interpretation, which imposed a duty to answer questions truthfully, and ...
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH There was a distinction between lying and telling half-truths, but it was a very narrow one.
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH What do the Texans say? All hat, no cattle.
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH It was hard to disappear completely in Botswana, where there were fewer than two million people and ...
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH We can't have moral obligations to every single person in this world. We have moral obligations to t...
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH ...But although the rules are vague
And widely disregarded now
Some precepts remain: live ...
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH Whisky nosers, as they called themselves, eschewed what they saw as the pretentiousness of wine voca...
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH She remembered love, though, and a feeling of warmth. It was like remembering light, or the glow tha...
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH However she redefined herself, that part of one that made for the core of the self, that part that w...
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH every man has a map in his heart of his own country and that the heart will never allow you to forge...
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH Putting Mr. Polopetsi in charge of the investigation is like putting a rabbit in charge of the airpo...
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH Well, I'd say all of us are a combination of moods and emotions. In my day to day life I don'...
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH It's through the small things that we develop our moral imagination, so that we can understand t...
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH But he'll never be fully recognised, because Scots literature these days is all about complaining an...
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH The winds must come from somewhere when they blow…There must be reasons why the leaves decay.
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH My wife Elizabeth and I started The Really Terrible Orchestra for people like us who are pretty hope...
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH My parents were very supportive and always encouraged us. My father was a gentle, nice man. My mothe...
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH Every novel presents a slice of life. A noir policier for example presents one slice, one that perha...
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH Any author of fiction will tell you that characters don't need to be told what to do.
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH The point of opera is that people are moved by the emotions and music.
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH I've always had a creative urge and I get immense satisfaction from creating something because i...
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH Botswana is actually very peaceful. It's democratic. It never was in debt. They've been fort...
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH Serial novels have an unexpected effect; they hook the writer as well as the reader.
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH Who can't like pigs? They're wonderful creatures! I've always liked pigs.
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH Painters aren't expected to paint bleak pictures, are they?
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH It seems to me that we're in danger of losing sight of certain basic civic values in society by ...
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH I'm very interested in tea. I wouldn't mind being involved in some aspect of the tea industr...
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH That my philosophy of life is, as far as possible, one of enjoyment. I'm not nihilistic.
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH As a writer, I have readers who will have a range of political views. I don't think they look to...
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH When you're locked up in here for life, you learn to welcome the little freedoms.
ALEXANDER GORDON SMITH Now the tea began to do its work- as it always did- and the world that only a few minutes previously...
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH Shall I make you a cup of tea? He asked. It was the classic response to crisis practiced throughout ...
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH There was a teapot, in which Mma Ramotswe -- the only lady private detective in Botwana -- brewed te...
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH So the small things came into their own: small acts of helping others, if one could; small ways of m...
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH The previously unloved may find it hard to believe that they are now loved; that is such a miracle, ...
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH Do you realise that people die of boredom in London suburbs? It's the second biggest cause of death ...
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH And then the second thing you have to do is go and see your son. That is a duty of love, Andrew. It'...
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH The trouble with Grace, she thought, is that she is so literal. But that was the trouble with most p...
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH Myth is a cloud based upon a shadow based upon the movement of the breeze.
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH Myth could be as sustaining as reality - sometimes even more so.
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH Well, that's the important thing, isn't it, Mma? To feel happiness, and then to remember it.
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH And if things go on as they are, in a few months the men will have cut all the trees down and that w...
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH Why not imagine a talk with a pumpkin? Why not imagine going off for a drive with a friendly pumpkin...
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH Can you forgive her? Can you do that?
There was no response.
Because if you can start to f...
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH No matter what precautions were taken, socks disappeared into a Bermuda Triangle for socks, a swirli...
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH Writers just play out their fantasies in their books. They are often very unstable, tricky people, B...
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH Constant love despite almost impossible anti-clamix towards this place of the rising sun...
ALEXANDER On the way to your success and realisation of the dreams you have to do one tiny thing - start do it...
ALEXANDER As more you're busy and overwhelmed as more free and leisure time you have.
ALEXANDER Occasionally, I don't invent something and I don't lie, sometimes there're moments when I just don't...
ALEXANDER I just believe that someday I'll meet a person who'd describe me from the side as thoroughly and elo...
ALEXANDER Being unique - be yourself, only so you'll distinguish yourself out of the ''grey'' and motionless r...
ALEXANDER Live with the current day, otherwise someday you'll wake up and realise that all remarkable and gorg...
ALEXANDER Endeavour to explore the surrounding world, try to do your best and jump over you head, only in that...
ALEXANDER As more busier and overwhelmed you're, as more free time you have.
ALEXANDER Facing the obstacle don't fall in depression, just reverse the problem and take a glance at it at an...
ALEXANDER Everything what you do has sense. If you don't like the world around you can draw your own, compose ...
ALEXANDER I'm enormously afraid of one inevitable and trivial thing - that one day I'll simply cease to exist.
ALEXANDER Do you know why responsible people do hide price of extremely expensive things? People don't want to...
ALEXANDER I don't want to be too proud, but I have a good personal style.
ALEXANDER MCQUEEN Clothes and jewellery should be startling, individual. When you see a woman in my clothes, you want ...
ALEXANDER MCQUEEN Youth culture now really looks back and embraces the past, but keeps it contemporary but not stickin...
ALEXANDER MCQUEEN British fashion is self confident and fearless. It refuses to bow to commerce, thus generating a con...
ALEXANDER MCQUEEN I never look at other people's work. My mind has to be completely focused on my own illusions.
ALEXANDER MCQUEEN I'm not interested in being liked.
ALEXANDER MCQUEEN There is something sinister, something quite biographical about what I do - but that part is for me....
ALEXANDER MCQUEEN There has to be a balance between your mental satisfaction and the financial needs of your company.
ALEXANDER MCQUEEN You can hide so much behind theatrics, and I don't need to do that any more.
ALEXANDER MCQUEEN Sting's my ideal man, because he's a real man.
ALEXANDER MCQUEEN Some couture collections have everything including the kitchen sink! Everything gets thrown on to ma...
ALEXANDER MCQUEEN I want people to be afraid of the women I dress.
ALEXANDER MCQUEEN For a long time I was looking for my perfect equilibrium, my mojo. And now I think I'm getting t...
ALEXANDER MCQUEEN Give me time and I'll give you a revolution.
ALEXANDER MCQUEEN It's good to know where you come from. It makes you what you are today. It's DNA, it's i...
ALEXANDER MCQUEEN You can only go forward by making mistakes.
ALEXANDER MCQUEEN Fashion should be a form of escapism, and not a form of imprisonment.
ALEXANDER MCQUEEN It's a new era in fashion - there are no rules. It's all about the individual and personal s...
ALEXANDER MCQUEEN Of course I make mistakes. I'm human. If I didn't make mistakes, I'd never learn. You ca...
ALEXANDER MCQUEEN When the sword is once drawn, the passions of men observe no bounds of moderation.
ALEXANDER HAMILTON Real liberty is neither found in despotism or the extremes of democracy, but in moderate governments...
ALEXANDER HAMILTON All generalizations are false, including this one.
ALEXANDER CHASE In short, no pattern is an isolated entity. Each pattern can exist in the world only to the extent t...
CHRISTOPHER ALEXANDER I want to empower women. I want people to be afraid of the women I dress.
ALEXANDER MCQUEEN I want to empower women.
ALEXANDER MCQUEEN A promise must never be broken.
ALEXANDER HAMILTON The modern individual is committed to being successful, not to being a person. He belongs rightly to...
ALEXANDER LOWEN The warning message we sent the Russians was a calculated ambiguity that would be clearly understood...
ALEXANDER HAIG The proper study of Mankind is Man.
ALEXANDER POPE And, after all, what is a lie? 'Tis but the truth in a masquerade.
ALEXANDER POPE Blessed is the man who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed was the ninth beatitude.
ALEXANDER POPE The ruling passion, be it what it will. The ruling passion conquers reason still.
ALEXANDER POPE Hope springs eternal in the human breast: Man never is, but always to be blest.
ALEXANDER POPE So vast is art, so narrow human wit.
ALEXANDER POPE The most positive men are the most credulous.
ALEXANDER POPE Know then thyself, presume not God to scan; The proper study of mankind is man.
ALEXANDER POPE How happy is the blameless vestal's lot? The world forgetting, by the world forgot.
ALEXANDER POPE And die of nothing but a rage to live.
ALEXANDER POPE Act well your part, there all the honour lies.
ALEXANDER POPE A little learning is a dangerous thing; Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring.
ALEXANDER POPE The greatest magnifying glasses in the world are a man's own eyes when they look upon his own pe...
ALEXANDER POPE Never find fault with the absent.
ALEXANDER POPE A brain of feathers, and a heart of lead.
ALEXANDER POPE Teach me to feel another's woe, to hide the fault I see, that mercy I to others show, that mercy...
ALEXANDER POPE On life's vast ocean diversely we sail. Reasons the card, but passion the gale.
ALEXANDER POPE We do not even see the sun for several months in the north of Sweden.
ALEXANDER AHNDORIL