“Any one who is much talked of, must be much maligned. This seems to be a harsh conclusion; but when you consider how much more given men are to depreciate than to appreciate, you will acknowledge that there is some truth in the saying.”
Source: Brevia: Short Essays and Aphorisms. (1871), p. 6
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Arthur Helps 17
British writer 1813–1875Related quotes
“But I fancy that I hear some (for there will never be wanting men who would rather be eloquent than good) saying "Why then is there so much art devoted to eloquence? Why have you given precepts on rhetorical coloring and the defense of difficult causes, and some even on the acknowledgment of guilt, unless, at times, the force and ingenuity of eloquence overpowers even truth itself? For a good man advocates only good causes, and truth itself supports them sufficiently without the aid of learning."”
Videor mihi audire quosdam (neque enim deerunt umquam qui diserti esse quam boni malint) illa dicentis: "Quid ergo tantum est artis in eloquentia? cur tu de coloribus et difficilium causarum defensione, nonnihil etiam de confessione locutus es, nisi aliquando vis ac facultas dicendi expugnat ipsam veritatem? Bonus enim vir non agit nisi bonas causas, eas porro etiam sine doctrina satis per se tuetur veritas ipsa."
Book XII, Chapter I, 33; translation by Rev. John Selby Watson
De Institutione Oratoria (c. 95 AD)
“Talk about it as much as you like,—one's breeding shows itself nowhere more than in his religion.”
The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table (1858)
Source: Liberalism (1911), Chapter IX, The Future Of Liberalism, p. 118.
Management affects people and their lives.
Source: 1990s and later, Managing in a Time of Great Change (1995), p. 351
“Thank you, if you appreciate the tuning so much, I hope you will enjoy the playing more.”
To the audience at The Concert for Bangladesh (1971)
Variant: Thank you, if you appreciate the tuning so much, I hope you will enjoy the playing more.
Source: Education of a Wandering Man (1989), Ch. 11
Lectures XIV and XV, "The Value of Saintliness"
1900s, The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902)
Context: Is dogmatic or scholastic theology less doubted in point of fact for claiming, as it does, to be in point of right undoubtable? And if not, what command over truth would this kind of theology really lose if, instead of absolute certainty, she only claimed reasonable probability for her conclusions? If we claim only reasonable probability, it will be as much as men who love the truth can ever at any given moment hope to have within their grasp. Pretty surely it will be more than we could have had, if we were unconscious of our liability to err.
