Henry Taylor Quotes

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.

Considering the temptations under which politicians are placed, of changing their opinions, or rather their professions of opinion, from motives of self interest, the world will not give them credit for motives of honest conviction, unless when the change shall be to their manifest loss and disadvantage.

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

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.

Prodigality is indeed the vice of a weak nature, as avarice is of a strong one; it comes of a weak craving for those blandishments of the world which are easily to be had for money, and which, when obtained, are as much worse than worthless as a harlot's love is worse than none.

An unreflected light did never yet
Dazzle the vision feminine.

His food
Was glory, which was poison to his mind
And peril to his body.

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

Few things will occasion a statesman so much embarrassment as a prevailing opinion that he will yield that to importunity which he ought to proffer to less forward parties upon juster grounds, and that whether he grants or refuses no harm can be done by asking.

The pretext for indecisiveness is commonly mature deliberation; but in reality indecisive men occupy themselves less in deliberation than others; for to him who fears to decide, deliberation (which has a foretaste of that fear) soon becomes intolerably irksome, and the mind escapes from the anxiety of it into alien themes.

Climbing the bole of the tree, a man clings with all his arms and legs, and lays hold of every knob and sliver. When he mounts amongst the branches, it should be with a more easy alacrity. A man will often be apt at the one operation, yet awkward at the other. Nor is it, indeed, common to meet with a man of such a character as can be carried from a low condition of life through successive ascents, with an aptitude for every condition into which he passes; and thus it is that men who rise well will often stand infirmly. But for want of due consideration being given to the nature of men and circumstances, it is a usual thing to hear, not only regret but surprise expressed, when a man who has attained an elevated position in life exhibits in that position those very defects of character through which he is there.

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.

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

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.