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A weak mind sinks under prosperity, as well as under adversity.
--JULIUS CHARLES HARE, Guesses at Truth
What a pity it is that there are so many words! Whenever one wants to say anything, three or four ways of saying it run into one's head together; and one can't tell which to choose. It is as troublesome and puzzling as choosing a ribbon ... or a husband.
--JULIUS CHARLES HARE, Guesses at Truth
When you doubt between two words, choose the plainest, the commonest, the most idiomatic. Eschew fine words as you would rouge: love simple ones, as you would native roses on your cheeks.
--JULIUS CHARLES HARE, Guesses at Truth
[In] public speaking ... there is a strong temptation to make up for emptiness by sound, to give commonplace observations an uncommon look by swelling them out with bloated diction--to tack a string of conventional phrases to the tail of every proposition, in the hope that this will enable it to fly--and to take care that the buckram thoughts, in whatever respects they may resemble Falstaff's men, shall at least have plenty of buckram to strut in.
--JULIUS CHARLES HARE, Guesses at Truth
Children always turn toward the light. O that grown-up people in this would become like little children!
JULIUS CHARLES HARE, Guesses at Truth
A language has very little that is arbitrary in it, very little betokening the conscious power and action of man. It owes its origin, not to the thoughts and the will of individuals, but to an instinct actuating a whole people: it expresses what is common to them all: it has sprung out of their universal wants, and lives in their hearts. But after a while in intellectual aristocracy come forward, and frame a new language of their own. The princes and lords of thought shoot forth their winged words into regions beyond the scan of the people. They require a gold coinage, in addition to the common currency.
--JULIUS CHARLES HARE, Guesses at Truth
Truth, when witty, is the wittiest of all things.
JULIUS CHARLES HARE, Guesses at Truth
The difference between those whom the world esteems as good and those whom it condemns as bad, is in many cases little else than that the former have been better sheltered from temptation.
JULIUS CHARLES HARE, Guesses at Truth
They who boast of their tolerance merely give others leave to be as careless about religion as they are themselves; a walrus might as well pride itself on its endurance of cold.
JULIUS CHARLES HARE, Guesses at Truth
Thought is the wind, knowledge the sail, and mankind the vessel.
JULIUS CHARLES HARE, Guesses at Truth
Never put too much confidence in such as put no confidence in others; a man prone to suspect evil is mostly looking in his neighbor for what he sees in himself; as to the pure, all things are pure.
JULIUS CHARLES HARE, Guesses at Truth
The praise of others may be of use in teaching us, not what we are, but what we ought to be.
JULIUS CHARLES HARE, Guesses at Truth
If then I am addressing one of that numerous class, who read to be told what to think, let me advise you to meddle with the book no further. You wish to buy a house ready furnished: do not come to look for it in a stonequarry. But if you are building up your opinions for yourself, and only want to be provided with materials, you may meet with many things in these pages to suit you.
JULIUS HARE, Guesses at Truth
Politeness is the outward garment of goodwill.
JULIUS CHARLES HARE, Guesses at Truth
Humanity, once put off, is put off for worse, as well as for better; if we take not good heed to live angelically afterward, we must count on becoming devilish.
JULIUS CHARLES HARE, Guesses at Truth
Leaves are light, and useless, and idle, and wavering, and changeable; they even dance; yet God has made them part of oak; in so doing He has given us a lesson not to deny the stout-heartedness within, because we see the lightsomeness without.
JULIUS CHARLES HARE, Guesses at Truth
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