Arthur Helps
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.Collection: Fall
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.Collection: Men
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.Collection: Vanity
Pride, if not the origin, is the medium of all wickedness-the atmosphere without which it would instantly die away.Collection: Pride
They tell us that "Pity is akin to Love;" if so, Pity must be a poor relation.Collection: Pity
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.Collection: Men
People resemble still more the time in which they live, than they resemble their fathers.Collection: Time
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.Collection: Lying
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.Collection: Time
Do not be deceived into thinking that how a man acts is the full picture.Collection: Men
Alas! it is not the child but the boy that generally survives in the man.Collection: Children
You cannot ensure the gratitude of others for a favour conferred upon them in the way which is most agreeable to yourself.Collection: Gratitude
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.Collection: Wise
Many know how to please, but know not when they have ceased to give pleasure.Collection: Giving
We are not so easily guided by our most prominent weaknesses as by those of which we are least aware.Collection: Weakness
Some persons, instead of making a religion for their God, are content to make a god of their religion.Collection: Religion
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.Collection: Mistake
It has been said with some meaning that if men would but rest in silence, they might always hear the music of the spheres.Collection: Men
Always win fools first. They talk much, and what they have once uttered they will stick to; whereas there is always time, up to the last moment, to bring before a wise man arguments that may entirely change his opinion.Collection: Wise
The reasons which any man offers to you for his own conduct betray his opinion of your character.Collection: Character
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.Collection: Art
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.Collection: Character
The very best financial presentation is one that's well thought out and anticipates any questions... answering them in advance.Collection: Business
Few have wished for memory so much as they have longed for forgetfulness.Collection: Memories
If you would understand your own age, read the works of fiction produced in it. People in disguise speak freely.Collection: Book
The world will tolerate many vices, but not their diminutives.Collection: Vices
No man has ever praised to persons equally-and pleased them both.Collection: Men
What a blessing this smoking is! Perhaps the greatest that we owe to the discovery of America.Collection: Blessing
The world will find out that part of your character which concerns it: that which especially concerns yourself, it will leave for you to discover.Collection: Character
Wisdom is seldom gained without suffering.Collection: Wisdom
Simple ignorance has in its time been complimented by the names of most of the vices, and of all the virtues.Collection: Ignorance
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.Collection: Greatness
An official man is always an official man, and has a wild belief in the value of Reports.Collection: Men
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.Collection: Men
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.Collection: Love
Thoughts there are, not to be translated into any language, and spirits alone can read them.Collection: Spirit
We are frequently understood the least by those who have known us the longest.Collection: Understood
The measure of civilization in a people is to be found in its just appreciation of the wrongfulness of war.Collection: Appreciation
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.Collection: Made
Offended vanity is the great separator in social life.Collection: Life
It is a weak thing to tell half your story, and then ask your friend's advice-a still weaker thing to take it.Collection: Advice
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.Collection: Gratitude
Nature intended you to be the fountain-spring of cheerfulness and social life, and not the mountain of despair and melancholy.Collection: Spring
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.Collection: Honesty
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.Collection: Beautiful
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.Collection: Morning
Those who never philosophized until they met with disappointments, have mostly become disappointed philosophersCollection: Disappointment
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."Collection: Believe
It is a weak thing to tell half your story, and then ask your friend’s advice-a still weaker thing to take it.Collection: Stories