Arthur Helps Quotes
-
Infinite toil would not enable you to sweep away a mist; but by ascending a little you may often look over it altogether.
-
I do not know any way so sure of making others happy as of being so oneself, to begin with.
-
We are pleased with one who instantly assents to our opinions, but we love a proselyte.
-
You cannot ensure the gratitude of others for a favour conferred upon them in the way which is most agreeable to yourself.
-
A great and frequent error in our judgment of human nature is to suppose that those sentiments and feelings have no existence, which may be only for a time concealed. The precious metals are not found at the surface of the earth, except in sandy places.
-
Nature intended you to be the fountain-spring of cheerfulness and social life, and not the mountain of despair and melancholy.
-
People resemble still more the time in which they live, than they resemble their fathers.
-
If you are often deceived by those around you, you may be sure that you deserve to be deceived; and that instead of railing at the general falseness of mankind, you have first to pronounce judgment on your own jealous tyranny, or on your own weak credulity.
-
Do not shun this maxim because it is common-place. On the contrary, take the closest heed of what observant men, who would probably like to show originality, are yet constrained to repeat. Therein lies the marrow of the wisdom of the world.
-
The most enthusiastic man in a cause is rarely chosen as the leader.
-
War may be the game of kings, but, like the games at ancient Rome, it is generally exhibited to please and pacify the people.
-
A mixture of admiration and pity is one of the surest recipes for affection.
-
Almost all human affairs are tedious. Everything is too long. Visits, dinners, concerts, plays, speeches, pleadings, essays, sermons, are too long. Pleasure and business labor equally under this defect, or, as I should rather say, this fatal super-abundance.
-
There are no better cosmetics than a severe temperance and purity, modesty and humility, a gracious temper and calmness of spirit; and there is no true beauty without the signatures of these graces in the very countenance.
-
He who is continually changing his point of view sees more, and more clearly, than one who, statue-like, forever stands upon the same pedestal; however lofty and well-placed that pedestal may be.
-
The thing which makes one man greater than another, the quality by which we ought to measure greatness, is a man's capacity for loving.
-
It is in length of patience, endurance and forbearance that so much of what is good in mankind and womankind is shown.
-
The apparent foolishness of others is but too frequently our own ignorance.
-
Every happiness is a hostage to fortune.
-
Having once decided to achieve a certain task, achieve it at all costs of tedium and distaste. The gain in self confidence of having accomplished a tiresome labor is immense.
-
Tolerance is the only real test of civilization.
-
Routine is not organization, any more than paralysis is order.
-
In a balanced organization, working towards a common objective, there is success.
-
If you would understand your own age, read the works of fiction produced in it. People in disguise speak freely.