Henry Taylor Quotes

43 Sourced Quotes

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.

Henry Taylor
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.

Henry Taylor
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.

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

Henry Taylor
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.

Henry Taylor
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.

Henry Taylor
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.

Henry Taylor
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.

Henry Taylor
A statesman should steer by the compass, but he must lie with the wind.

Henry Taylor
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.

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

Henry Taylor
It is very certain that there may be met with, in public life, a species of conscience which is all bridle and no spurs.

Henry Taylor
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.

Henry Taylor
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.

Henry Taylor
To choose that which will bring him the most credit with the least trouble, has hitherto been the sole care of the statesman in office.

Henry Taylor
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.

Henry Taylor
A secret may be sometimes best kept by keeping the secret of its being a secret.

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

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

Henry Taylor
An unreflected light did never yet
Dazzle the vision feminine.

Henry Taylor
There is no such test of a man's superiority of character as in the well-conducting of an unavoidable quarrel.

Henry Taylor
And for that they were rich,/And robbed the poor; and for that they were strong,/And scourged the weak; and for that they made laws/Which turned the sweat of labor's brow to blood! - /For these their sins the nations cast them out.

Henry Taylor
No statesman, be he as discreet as he may, will escape having ascribed to him, as the result of interviews, promises and understandings which it was not his purpose to convey; and yet in a short time he will be unable to recollect what was said with sufficient distinctness to enable him to give a confident contradiction.

Henry Taylor
The conscience of a statesman should be rather a strong conscience than a tender conscience.

Henry Taylor
One who would thrive by seeking favours from the great, should never trouble them for small ones.

Henry Taylor
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.

Henry Taylor
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.

Henry Taylor
He who has once advanced by a stride will not be content to advance afterwards by steps. Public servants, therefore, like racehorses, should be well fed with reward, but not to fatness.

Henry Taylor
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.

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

Henry Taylor