Arthur Helps Quotations

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

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.

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

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

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.

In a balanced organization, working towards a common objective, there is success.

Keep your feet on the ground, but let your heart soar as high as it will. Refuse to be average or to surrender to the chill of your spiritual environment.

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.

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

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

The sense of danger is never, perhaps, so fully apprehended as when the danger has been overcome.

The man of the house can destroy the pleasure of the household, but he cannot make it. That rests with the woman, and it is her greatest privilege.

Is boredom anything less than the sense of one's faculties slowly dying?

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

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

Everywhere I have sought rest and not found it, except sitting in a corner by myself with a little book.

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 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.

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

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.

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

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

There are few who would need advisers, if they were only accustomed to appeal to themselves in their calmest, holiest moments. If, when embarrassed with doubt as to any course of action, they would turn aside from the immediate tumult of the world, and from the vain speaking of those who "darken counsel by words without knowledge;" and would then commune with their hearts alone, at night, the heavens their silent counsellors, they would act not always in accordance with the wise men of this world, but with that wisdom which bringeth peace.

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.

Those who are successfully to lead their fellow-men, should have once possessed the nobler feelings. We have all known individuals whose magnanimity was not likely to be troublesome on any occasion; but then they betrayed their own interests by unwisely omitting the consideration, that such feelings might exist in the breasts of those whom they had to guide and govern: for they themselves cannot even remember the time when in their eyes justice appeared preferable to expediency, the happiness of others to self-interest, or the welfare of a State to the advancement of a party.

Experience is the extract of suffering.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

Offended vanity is the great separator in social life.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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."

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

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.

We are not so easily guided by our most prominent weaknesses as by those of which we are least aware.

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

The very best financial presentation is one that's well thought out and anticipates any questions... answering them in advance.

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

Men rattle their chains-to manifest their freedom.

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

Tolerance is the only real test of civilization.

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.

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

Few have wished for memory so much as they have longed for forgetfulness.

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

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.

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 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.

The world will tolerate many vices, but not their diminutives.

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.

Infinite toil would not enable you to sweep away a mist; but by ascending a little, you may often look over it altogether. So it is with our moral improvement: we wrestle fiercely with a vicious habit, which could have no hold upon us if we ascended into a higher moral atmosphere.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

The most common-place people become highly imaginative when they are in a passion. Whole dramas of insult, injury, and wrong pass before their minds,--efforts of creative genius, for there is sometimes not a fact to go upon.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Wisdom is seldom gained without suffering.

The most enthusiastic man in a cause is rarely chosen as the leader.

Remember that in giving any reason at all for refusing, you lay some foundation for a future request.

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.

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

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

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

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

It has been said with some meaning that if men would but rest in silence, they might always hear the music of the spheres.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

Every happiness is a hostage to fortune.

It takes a great man to make a great listener

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

Selfishness, when it is punished by the world, is mostly punished because it is connected with egotism.

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.

War may be the game of kings, but, like the games at ancient Rome, it is generally exhibited to please and pacify the people.

Reading is sometimes an ingenious device for avoiding thought.

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.

We are pleased with one who instantly assents to our opinions, but we love a proselyte.

Vague injurious reports are no men's lies, but all men's carelesness.

Whose indomitable spirit changed the face of the earth for us

He that loves a book will never want a faithful friend, a wholesome counselor, a cheerful companion, an effectual comforter. By study, by reading, by thinking, one may innocently divert and pleasantly entertain himself, as in all weathers, as in all fortunes.