Thomas Hughes Quotes

A character for steadiness once gone is not easily recovered

While one was an undergraduate, one could feel virtuous and indignant at the vices of Oxford, at least at those which one did not indulge in, particularly at the flunkeyism and money-worship which are our most prevalent and disgraceful sins. But when one is a fellow it is quite another affair. They become a sore burthen then, enough to break one's heart.

Don't be led away to think this part of the world important and that unimportant. Every corner of the world is important. No man knows whether this part or that is most so, but every man may do some honest work in his own corner.

He had acquired all the composed and self-reliant look which is so remarkable in a good non-commissioned officer.

The trout fisher, like the landscape painter, haunts the loveliest places of the earth, and haunts them alone. Solitude and his own thoughts - he must be on the best terms with all of these; and he who can take kindly the largest allowance of these is likely to be the kindliest and truest with his fellow men.

We all have to learn, in one way or another, that neither men nor boys get second chances in this world. We all get new chances to the end of our lives, but not second chances in the same set of circumstances; and the great difference between one person and another is how he takes hold and uses his first chance, and how he takes his fall if it is scored against him.

You see, at Rugby I was rather a great man. There one had a share in the ruling of 300 boys, and a good deal of responsibility; but here one has only just to take care of oneself, and keep out of scrapes; and that's what I never could do.

This work of making trade righteous, of Christianizing trade, looks like the very hardest the Gospel has ever had to take in hand - in England at any rate.

At that moment his soul is fuller of the tomb and him who lies there than of the altar and Him of whom it speaks. Such stages have to be gone through, I believe, by all young and brave souls, who must win their way through hero-worship to the worship of Him who is the King and Lord of heroes.

The least of the muscular Christians has hold of the old chivalrous and Christian belief, that a man's body is given him to be trained and brought into subjection, and then used for the protection of the weak, the advancement of all righteous causes, and the subduing of the earth which God has given to the children of men. He does not hold that mere strength or activity are in themselves worthy of any respect or worship, or that one man is a bit better than another because he can knock him down, or carry a bigger sack of potatoes than he.

The faces of your young people in general are not interesting - I don't mean the children, but the young men and women - and they are awkward and clownish in their manners, without the quaintness of the elder generation, who are the funniest old dears in the world." "They will all be quaint enough as they get older. You must remember the sort of life they lead. They get their notions very slowly, and they must have notions in their heads before they can show them on their faces.

Heaven, they say, protects children, sailors, and drunken men; and whatever answers to Heaven in the academical system protects freshmen.

We must worship God before we can reverence parents or women, or root out flunkeyism and money-worship.

Shopkeepers - the great landed and commercial interests - regularly sat and slept, and where the two publicans occupied pews, but seldom made even the pretence of worshipping.

I want to leave behind me the name of a fellow who never bullied a little boy, or turned his back on a big one.

He never wants anything but what's right and fair; only when you come to settle what's right and fair, it's everything that he wants and nothing that you want.

The giving of undue prominence to one fact brings others inexorably on the head of the student to avenge his neglect of them,

Christ's whole life on earth was the assertion and example of true manliness - the setting forth in living act and word what man is meant to be, and how he should carry himself in this world of God - one long campaign in which the temptation stands out as the first great battle and victory.

Old timidity has disappeared, and is replaced by silent, quaint fun, with which his face twinkles all over, as he listens.

Class amusements, be they for Dukes or plow-boys, always become nuisances and curses to a country. The true charm of cricket and hunting is that they are still, more or less sociable and universal; There's a place for every man who will come and take his part.

That is the Proctor. He is our Cerberus; he has to keep all undergraduates in good order." "What a task! He ought to have three heads.

It's more than a game. It's an institution.

Those were times when brave men who knew and loved their profession couldn't be overlooked.

Grey hoped the Church would yet be able to save England from the fate of Tyre or Carthage, the great trading nations

Remember there's always a voice saying the right thing to you somewhere if you'll only listen for it.

Schools and universities are (as in a body) the noble and vital parts, which being vigorous and sound send good blood and active spirits into the veins and arteries, which cause health and strength; or, if feeble or ill-affected, corrupt all the vital parts; whereupon grow diseases, and in the end, death itself.