Top 15 Henry Taylor Quotes

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

Fear, indeed, is the mother of foresight…

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

It has been said of compliments, that men are most flattered by having the merits attributed to them which they least possess; but as it is only by liars that such compliments can be proffered, so it is only with fools that they can find a favourable acceptation.

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.

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.

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.

The hope, and not the fact, of advancement, is the spur to industry.