Arthur Helps Quotes
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Friendship is often outgrown; and his former child’s clothes will no more fit a man than some of his former friendships.
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Reading is sometimes an ingenious device for avoiding thought.
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No man ever praised two persons equally – and pleased them both.
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Do not mistake energy for enthusiasm; the softest speakers are often the most enthusiastic of men.
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Is boredom anything less than the sense of one's faculties slowly dying?
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There is nothing so easily made offensive as good reasoning; and men of clear logical minds, if not gifted at the same time with tact, make more enemies than men with bad hearts and unsound understandings.
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We are not so easily guided by our most prominent weaknesses as by those of which we are least aware.
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You must work for yourself; for what you reject may be as important for you to have seen and thought about, as what you adopt.
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The more truth you can get into any business, the better. Let the other side know the defects of yours, let them know how you are to be satisfied, let there be as little to be found as possible (I should say nothing), and if your business be an honest one, it will be best tended in this way.
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Even the most careless people have a sort of aversion to signing things which they have never considered.
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The greatest luxury of riches is that they enable you to escape so much good advice. The rich are always advising the poor; but the poor seldom return the compliment.
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The knowledge of others which experience gives us, is of slight value when compared with that which we obtain from having proved the inconstancy of our own desires.
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Some persons, instead of making a religion for their God, are content to make a god of their religion.
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Experience is the extract of suffering.
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Any one who is much talked of, must be much maligned. This seems to be a harsh conclusion; but when you consider how much more given men are to depreciate than to appreciate, you will acknowledge that there is some truth in the saying.
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Self-indulgence takes many forms; and we should bear in mind that there may be a sullen sensuality as well as a gay one.
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The envious man desires some good which another possesses; the jealous man would often be content to be without the good so that that other did not possess it.
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Our knowledge of human nature is for the most part empirical; and it would often be better, if, instead of endeavouring to say some new things ourselves, we were to confirm without more words the sayings of another.
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It takes a great man to make a great listener.
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Soothe the present as much as we may; look forward as hopefully as we can to the future, still the dreadful past must overshadow us.
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A sceptical young man one day conversing with the celebrated Dr. Parr, observed that he would believe nothing which he could not understand. "Then, young man, your creed will be the shortest of any man's I know."
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How often we should stop in the pursuit of folly, if it were not for the difficulties that continually beckon us onwards.
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Infinite toil would not enable you to sweep away a mist; but by ascending a little you may often look over it altogether.
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Remember that in giving any reason at all for refusing, you lay some foundation for a future request.