Quotes from Arthur Helps

Every happiness is a hostage to fortune.

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

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

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.

Strength is born in the deep silence of long-suffering hearts not amid joy.

Experience is the extract of suffering.

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.

Offended vanity is the great separator in social life.

Reading is sometimes an ingenious device for avoiding thought.

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

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

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.

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

Our knowledge of human nature is for the most part empirical; and it would often be better, if, instead of endeavouring to say some new things ourselves, we were to confirm without more words the sayings of another.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Reading is sometimes an ingenious device for avoiding thought.

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