Aphorisms of Sir Arthur Helps (1813-1875):

• The business of the head is to form a good heart, and not merely to rule an evil one, as is generally imagined.
• There is hardly a more common error than that of taking the man who has one talent, for a genius.
• 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.
• (“An eastern proverb which rightly belongs to the western world”:) People resemble still more the time in which they live, than they resemble their fathers.
• The worst use that can be made of success is to boast of it.
• Few have wished for memory so much as they have longed for forgetfulness.
• The Simoon of the desert is not the only evil that may be avoided by stooping.
• War may be the game of kings, but, like the games at ancient Rome, it is generally exhibited to please and pacify the people.
• The sun is shining all around, but there are some who will only contemplate their own shadows.
• Misery appears to improve the intellect, but this is only because it dismisses fear.
• Eccentric people are never loved for their eccentricities.
• When we see the rapid motions of insects at evening, we exclaim, how happy they must be! — so inseparably are activity and happiness connected in our minds.
• Tact is the result of refined sympathy.
• Soothe the present as much as we may; look forward as hopefully as we can to the future, still the dreadful past must overshadow us.
• Simple Ignorance has in its time been complimented by the names of most of the vices, and of all the virtues.
• Tolerance is the only real test of civilization.
• The reasons which any man offers to you for his own conduct, betray his opinion of your character.
• An author’s works are his esoteric biography.
• The trifling of a great man is never trivial.
• If you would understand your own age, read the works of fiction produced in it. People in disguise speak freely.
• We must often consider, not what the wise will think, but what the foolish will be sure to say.

“A very useful book might be written with the sole object of advising what parts of what books should be read. It should not be a book of elegant extracts, but should merely refer to the passages which are advised to be read. It might also indicate what are the chief works upon any given subject. For example, take rent; the important passages in Adam Smith, Ricardo, Jones, Mill, and other writers, should be referred to.”

From Thoughts in the Cloister and the Crowd, 1835.