Top 99 Quotes & Sayings by Arthur Helps - Page 2

The man who could withstand, with his fellow-men in single line, a charge of cavalry may lose all command of himself on the occurrence of a fire in his own house, because of some homely reminiscence unknown to the observing bystander.

It is better in some respects to be admired by those with whom you live than to be loved by them; and this not on account of any gratification of vanity, but because admiration is so much more tolerant than love.

People resemble still more the time in which they live, than they resemble their fathers.

Many a man has a kind of a kaleidoscope, where the bits of broken glass are his own merits and fortunes; and they fall into harmonious arrangements, and delight him, often most mischievously and to his ultimate detriment; but they are a present pleasure.

It is in length of patience, endurance and forbearance that so much of what is good in mankind and womankind is shown.

Offended vanity is the great separator in social life.

Wisdom is seldom gained without suffering.

Always say a kind word if you can, if only that it may come in, perhaps, with singular opportuneness, entering some mournful man's darkened room, like a beautiful firefly, whose happy circumvolutions he cannot but watch, forgetting his many troubles.

There is hardly a more common error than that of taking the man who has one talent, for a genius.

It is quite impossible to understand the character of a person from one action, however striking that action may be.

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.

Infinite toil would not enable you to sweep away a mist; but by ascending a little you may often look over it altogether.

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.

No man who has not sat in the assemblies of men can know the light, odd and uncertain ways in which decisions are often arrived at.

No man has ever praised to persons equally-and pleased them both.

Pride, if not the origin, is the medium of all wickedness-the atmosphere without which it would instantly die away.

They tell us that "Pity is akin to Love;" if so, Pity must be a poor relation.

The heroic example of other days is in great part the source of the courage of each generation; and men walk up composedly to the most perilous enterprises, beckoned onward by the shades of the brave that were.

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.

There is one statesman of the present day, of whom I always say that he would have escaped making the blunders that he has made if he had only ridden more in buses.

Entrust a secret to one whose importance will not be much increased by divulging it.

Nature intended you to be the fountain-spring of cheerfulness and social life, and not the mountain of despair and melancholy.

Love, like the opening of the heavens to the Saints, shows for a moment, even to the dullest man, the possibilities of the human race. He has faith, hope, and charity for another being, perhaps but a creation of his imagination: still it is a great advance for a man to be profoundly loving even in his imaginations.

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."

Simple ignorance has in its time been complimented by the names of most of the vices, and of all the virtues.

Men of much depth of mind can bear a great deal of counsel; for it does not easily deface their own character, nor render their purposes indistinct.

There is an honesty which is but decided selfishness in disguise. The person who will not refrain from expressing his or her sentiments and manifesting his or her feelings, however unfit the time, however inappropriate the place, however painful this expression may be, lays claim, forsooth, to our approbation as an honest person, and sneers at those of finer sensibilities as hypocrites.

Extremely foolish advice is likely to be uttered by those who are looking at the laboring vessel from the land.

The measure of civilization in a people is to be found in its just appreciation of the wrongfulness of war.

We are frequently understood the least by those who have known us the longest.

Those who never philosophized until they met with disappointments, have mostly become disappointed philosophers

Thoughts there are, not to be translated into any language, and spirits alone can read them.

No doubt hard work is a great police agent. If everybody were worked from morning till night, and then carefully locked up, the register of crime might be greatly diminished. But what would become of human nature? Where would be the room for growth in such a system of things? It is through sorrow and mirth, plenty and need, a variety of passions, circumstances, and temptations, even through sin and misery, that men's natures are developed.

Be cheerful [and grateful for the good that you have]: do not brood over fond hopes unrealized until a chain is fastened on each thought and wound around the heart. Nature intended you to be the fountain-spring of cheerfulness and social life, and not the mountain of despair and melancholy.

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.

Most terrors are but spectral illusions. Only have the courage of the man who could walk up to his spectre seated in the chair before him, and sit down upon it; the horrid thing will not partake the chair with you.

It is a weak thing to tell half your story, and then ask your friend's advice-a still weaker thing to take it.

What a blessing this smoking is! Perhaps the greatest that we owe to the discovery of America.

An official man is always an official man, and has a wild belief in the value of Reports.