Arthur Helps Quotes

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.

I do not know of any sure way of making others happy as being so one's self.

No man, or woman, was ever cured of love by discovering the falseness of his or her lover. The living together for three long, rainy days in the country has done more to dispel love than all the perfidies in love that have ever been committed.

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

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.

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.

When we consider the incidents of former days, and perceive, while reviewing the long line of causes, how the most important events of our lives originated in the most trifling circumstances; how the beginning of our greatest happiness or greatest misery is to be attributed to a delay, to an accident, to a mistake; we learn a lesson of profound humility.

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.

Offended vanity is the great separator in social life.

A man's action is only a picture book of his creed.

Wise sayings often fall on barren ground, but a kind word is never thrown away.

Man ceased to be an ape, vanquished the ape, on the day the first book was written.

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

Rare almost as great poets, rarer, perhaps, than veritable saints and martyrs; are consummate men of business. A man, to be excellent in this way, requires a great knowledge of character, with that exquisite tact which feels unerringly the right moment when to act. A discreet rapidity must pervade all the movements of his thought and action. He must be singularly free from vanity, and is generally found to be an enthusiast who has the art to conceal his enthusiasm.

The greatest luxury of riches is that they enable you to escape so much good advice.

Tolerance is the only real test of civilization.

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.

Some persons, instead of making a religion for their God, are content to make a god of their religion.

It has always appeared to me, that there is so much to be done in this world, that all self-inflicted suffering which cannot be turned to good account for others, is a loss - a loss, if you may so express it, to the spiritual world.

Routine is not organization, any more than paralysis is order.

The worst use that can be made of success is to boast of it.

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.

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.

We should lay up in our minds a store of goodly thoughts which will be a living treasure of knowledge always with us, and from which, at various times, and amidst all the shiftings of circumstances, we might be sure of drawing some comfort, guidance and sympathy.

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.

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.

Many know how to please, but know not when they have ceased to give pleasure.

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.

It requires a strong mind to bear up against several languages. Some persons have learnt so many, that they have ceased to think in any one.

Any one who is much talked of 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.

Alas! it is not the child but the boy that generally survives in the man.

Do not be deceived into thinking that how a man acts is the full picture.

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

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.

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.

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

The reasons which any man offers to you for his own conduct betray his opinion of your character.

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

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

You cannot ensure the gratitude of others for a favour conferred upon them in the way which is most agreeable to yourself.

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

Every happiness is a hostage to fortune.

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

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.

To hear always, to think always, to learn always, it is thus that we live truly. He who aspires to nothing, who learns nothing, is not worthy of living.

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

A great many wise sayings have been uttered about the effects of solitary retirement; but the motives which impel men to seek it are not more various than the effects which it produces on different individuals. One thing is certain, that those who can with truth affirm that they are "never less alone than when alone," might generally add that they never feel more lonely than when not alone.

We all admire the wisdom of people who come to us for advice.

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

If you would understand your own age, read the works of fiction produced in it. People in disguise speak freely.

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

A mixture of admiration and pity is one of the surest recipes for affection.

More than half the difficulties of the world would be allayed or removed by the exhibition of good temper.

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

Love, like the opening of the heavens to the saints, shows for a moment, even to the dullest person, the possibilities of the human race. One has faith, hope, and charity for another being, perhaps but the creation of the imagination; still it is a great advance for a person to be profoundly loving, even in his or her imagination.

The apparent foolishness of others is but too frequently our own ignorance.

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.