Arthur helps quotes

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

Offended vanity is the great separator in social life.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

Wisdom is seldom gained without suffering.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

I do not know any way so sure of making others happy as of being so oneself, to begin with.

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.

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

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

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

It takes a great man to make a great listener

Experience is the extract of suffering.

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

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

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

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

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.

Men rattle their chains-to manifest their freedom.

Every happiness is a hostage to fortune.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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."

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

Tolerance is the only real test of civilization.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

Reading is sometimes an ingenious device for avoiding thought.

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

Pride, if not the origin, is the medium of all wickedness-the atmosphere without which it would instantly die away.

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

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.