 |
Apathy
|
|
They act as if they supposed that to be very sanguine about the general improvement of mankind is a virtue that relieves them from taking trouble about any improvement in particular.
-John Morley
|
|
Argument & Debate
|
|
|
You have not converted a man because you have silenced him.
-John Morley, On Compromise, 1874
|
|
Business
|
|
|
The great business of life is to be, to do, to do without and to depart.
-John Morley
|
|
Evolution
|
|
|
Evolution is not a force but a process. Not a cause but a law.
-John Morley
|
|
Government
|
|
|
In parliament he again pressed the necessity of reducing expenditure. Friends warned him that he was flogging a dead horse.
-John Morley
|
|
Intelligence
|
|
|
Simplicity of character is no hindrance to subtlety of intellect.
-John Morley, Life of Gladstone, 1903
|
|
Knowledge
|
|
|
Many people think of knowledge as money, They would like knowledge, but do not want to face the perseverance and self-denial that goes into the acquisition of it.
-John Morley
|
|
Literary
|
|
|
Literature, the most seductive, the most deceiving, the most dangerous of professions.
-John Morley
|
|
Morals
|
|
|
The essence of morality is the subjugation of nature in obedience to social needs.
-John Morley
|
|
Nature
|
|
|
Nature, in her most dazzling aspects or stupendous parts, is but the background and theater of the tragedy of man.
-John Morley
|
|
Opinion
|
|
|
Even good opinions are worth very little unless we hold them in the broad, intelligent, and spacious way.
-John Morley
|
|
Politics
|
|
|
In politics the choice is constantly between two evils.
-John Morley
|
|
Proverbial Wisdom
|
|
|
A proverb is good sense brought to a point.
-John Morley
|
|
|
They are the guiding oracles which man has found out for himself in that great business of ours, of learning how to be, to do, to do without, and to depart.
-John Morley
|
|
|
Maxims and aphorisms, let us remember that wisdom is the true salt of literature, and the books that are most nourishing are richly stored with it, and that is the main object to seek in reading books.
-John Morley
|
|
Quotations
|
|
|
The essence of a quote is the compression of a mass of thought and observation into a single saying.
-John Morley
|
|
Reading
|
|
|
Some of the most famous books are the least worth reading. Their fame was due to their having done something that needed to be doing in their day. The work is done and the virtue of the book has expired.
-John Morley
|
|
|
Books worth reading once are worth reading twice; and what is most important of all, the masterpieces of literature are worth reading a thousand times.
-John Morley
|
|
Virtue
|
|
|
He who hates vice hates men.
-John Morley
|
Books by and about John Morley