Hugh Blair Quotes

39 Sourced Quotes

The great standard of literature as to purity and exactness of style is the Bible.

Hugh Blair
Anxiety is the poison of human life ; the parent of many sins and of more miseries. – In a world where everything is doubtful, and where we may be disappointed, and be blessed in disappointment, why this restless stir and commotion of mind? – Can it alter the cause, or unravel the mystery of human events?

Hugh Blair
Though Milton is most distinguished for his sublimity, yet there is also much of the beautiful, the tender, and the pleasing in many parts of his work.

Hugh Blair
That discipline which corrects the baseness of worldly passion, fortifies the heart with virtuous principles, enlightens the mind with useful knowledge, and furnishes it with enjoyment from within itself, is of more consequence to real felicity, than all the provision we can make of the goods of fortune.

Hugh Blair
Embellish truth only with a view to gain it the more full and free admission into your hearer's minds; and your ornaments will, in that case, be simple, masculine, natural.

Hugh Blair
We ought certainly to read blank verse so as to make every line sensible to the ear; at the same time, in doing so, every appearance of sing-song and tone must be carefully guarded against.

Hugh Blair
The sinner is not only liable to that disappointment of success which so often prostrates all the designs of men, but liable to a disappointment still more cruel, of being successful and miserable at once.

Hugh Blair
A good man acts with a vigour, and suffers with a patience, more than human, when he believes himself countenanced by the Almighty.

Hugh Blair
The slave who digs in the mine or labors at the oar can rejoice at the prospect of laying down his burden together with his life; but to the slave of guilt there arises no hope from death. On the contrary, he is obliged to look forward with constant terror to this most certain of all events, as the conclusion of all his hopes, and the commencement of his greatest miseries.

Hugh Blair
How shocking must thy summons be, O Death!
To him that is at ease in his possessions!
Who, counting on long years of pleasure here,
Is quite unfurnished for the world to come.
In that dread moment, how the frantic soul
Raves round the walls of her clay tenement;
Runs to each avenue, and shrieks for help;
But shrieks in vain.

Hugh Blair
What we call human reason, is not the effort or ability of one, so much as it is the result of the reason of many, arising from lights mutually communicated, in consequence of discourse and writing.

Hugh Blair
Between levity and cheerfulness there is a wide distinction; and the mind which is most open to levity is frequently a stranger to cheerfulness.

Hugh Blair
As the primary end of History is to record truth, impartiality, fidelity and accuracy are the fundamental qualities of an Historian.

Hugh Blair
Human ability is an unequal match for the violent and unforeseen vicissitudes of the world.

Hugh Blair
To exult over the miseries of an unhappy creature is inhuman.

Hugh Blair
Nothing, except what flows from the heart, can render even external manners truly pleasing.

Hugh Blair
True gentleness is founded on a sense of what we owe to him who made us and to the common nature which we all share. It arises from reflection on our own failings and wants, and from just views of the condition and duty of man. It is native feeling heightened and improved by principle.

Hugh Blair
It is pride which fills the world with so much harshness and severity. We are rigorous to offenses as if we had never offended.

Hugh Blair
Taste consists in the power of judging; genius in the power of executing.

Hugh Blair
Nothing leads more directly to the breach of charity, and to the injury and molestation of our fellow-creatures, than the indulgence of an ill temper.

Hugh Blair
Dissimulation in youth is the forerunner of perfidy in old age; its first appearance is the fatal omen of growing depravity and future shame.

Hugh Blair
Idleness is the great corrupter of youth, and the bane and dishonor of middle age. He who, in the prime of life, finds time to hang heavy on his hands, may with much reason suspect that he has not consulted the duties which the consideration of his age imposed upon him; assuredly he has not consulted his happiness.

Hugh Blair
A fourth rule for constructing sentences with proper strength is to make the members of them go on rising and growing in their importance above one another. This sort of arrangement is called a climax, and is always considered as a beauty in composition.

Hugh Blair
Of all the means which human ingenuity has contrived for recalling the images of real objects, and awakening, by representation, similar emotions to those which were raised by the originals, none is so full and extensive as that which is created by words and writing.

Hugh Blair
An honest man will never employ an equivocal expression; a confused man may often utter ambiguous ones without any design.

Hugh Blair