Henry Taylor Quotes (1800-1886)

“For no syren did ever so charm the ear of the listener, as the listening ear has charmed the soul of the syren.”

“Of all the uses of adversity which are sweet, none are sweeter than those which grow out of disappointed love…”

“He who gives only what he would as readily throw away gives without generosity; for the essence of generosity is in self-sacrifice.”

“Shy and unready men are great betrayers of secrets; for there are few wants more urgent for the moment than the want of something to say.”

“When you give, therefore, take to yourself no credit for generosity, unless you deny yourself something in order that you may give.”

“Wisdom is corrupted by ambition, even when the quality of the ambition is intellectual. For ambition, even of this quality, is but a form of self-love…”

“To flesh your friend’s curiosity, and then endeavour to leave him with a hûc usque, is exposing your faculty of reticence to an unnecessary trial.”

“There are few things more important in the business of the state, than that the results of inquiry and research should be realised by those who have had the conduct of it.”

“Such souls,
Whose sudden visitations daze the world,
Vanish like lighting, but they leave behind
A voice that in the distance far away
Wakens the slumbering ages.”

“Such souls,
Whose sudden visitations daze the world,
Vanish like lightning, but they leave behind
A voice that in the distance far away
Wakens the slumbering ages.”

“Good nature and kindness towards those with whom they come in personal contact, at the expense of public interests, that is of those whom they never see, is the besetting sin of public men.”

“Shy and proud men … are more liable than any others to fall into the hands of parasites and creatures of low character. For in the intimacies which are formed by shy men, they do not choose, but are chosen.”

“Many magnify in words the importance of public duties, but few appreciate them in feeling; and that, not so much for want of feeling, as for want of carrying it out to whatever results the understanding reaches.”

“Where there are large powers with little ambition (which will happen sometimes, though seldom) nature may be said to have fallen short of her purposes; for she has given the machinery without the vis motrix.”

“We figure to ourselves
The thing we like; and then we build it up,
As chance will have it, on the rock or sand,—
For thought is tired of wandering o’er the world,
And homebound Fancy runs her bark ashore.”

“In our judgment of men, we are to beware of giving any great importance to occasional acts. By acts of occasional virtue weak men endeavour to redeem themselves in their own estimation, vain men to exalt themselves in that of mankind.”

“The philosophy which affects to teach us a contempt of money does not run very deep; for, indeed, it ought to be still more clear to the philosopher than it is to ordinary men, that there are few things in the world of greater importance.”