Benjamin Jowett Quotes

The way to get things done is not to mind who gets the credit for doing them.

Never retreat. Never explain. Get it done and let them howl.

Doubt comes in at the window when inquiry is denied at the door.

To teach a man how he may learn to grow independently, and for himself, is perhaps the greatest service that one man can do another.

Grace is an energy; not a mere sentiment; not a mere thought of the Almighty; not even a word of the Almighty. It is as real an energy as the energy of electricity. It is a divine energy; it is the energy of the divine affection rolling in plenteousness toward the shores of human need.

There is a great deal of hard lying in the world; especially among people whose characters are above suspicion.

Give the clergy your sympathy; don't give them anything else.

It is most important in this world to be pushing, but it is fatal to seem so.

Precautions are always blamed. When successful they are said to be unnecessary.

One man is as good as another until he has written a book.

You've got to be success minded. You've got to feel that things are coming your way when you're out selling; otherwise, you won't be able to sell anything.

We cannot seek or attain health, wealth, learning, justice or kindness in general. Action is always specific, concrete, individualized, unique.

Research ! A mere excuse for idleness; it has never achieved, and will never achieve any results of the slightest value.

All translation is a compromise - the effort to be literal and the effort to be idiomatic.

Young men make great mistakes in life; for one thing, they idealize love too much.

I am not blaming the past. ... But I want the peace of God to settle on the future.

My dear child, you must believe in God despite what the clergy tells you.

If you don't find a God by five o'clock this afternoon you must leave the college.

Nowhere probably is there more true feeling, and nowhere worse taste, than in a churchyard - both as regards the monuments and the inscriptions. Scarcely a word of true poetry anywhere.

We can't search or attain well being, wealth, studying, justice or kindness usually. Action is all the time particular, concrete, individualized, distinctive.

Plato's dialogues bear at least some similarities to the classical plays.

Jowett, in his day, did probably more than any other single man to let some fresh air into the exhausted atmosphere of the [Oxford] common rooms, and to widen the intellectual horizons of the place.