Henry Taylor Quotes

Fear, indeed, is the mother of foresight…

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.

An unreflected light did never yet
Dazzle the vision feminine.

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.

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.

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.

I have not skill
From such a sharp and waspish word as "No"
To pluck the sting.

In a statesman’s transactions there are many things which cannot be communicated otherwise than by manner without inconvenient commitment or controversy; and that will be the most serviceable manner which can be expressive or inexpressive at pleasure, and be used as a dark lantern to his meanings.

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

Conscience is, in most men, an anticipation of the opinions of others.

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

The craving for office with which statesmen are so often reproached is, perhaps, in the more active of them, quite as much a craving for business as for emolument or power; and their unseasonable love of business grows out of their forfeiture of the love of leisure. Rarely as well as fortunately endowed by nature is that man who can love one or the other according to his occasions.

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…

The art of living easily as to money, is to pitch your scale of living one degree below your means.

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.