John Lubbock Quotes - Page 3

How little our libraries cost us as compared with our liquor cellars.

Love seems to beautify and inspire all nature. It raises the earthly caterpillar into the ethereal butterfly, it paints the feathers in spring, it lights the glowworm's lamp, it wakens the song of birds, and inspires the poet's lay. Even inanimate Nature seems to feel the spell, and flowers glow with the richest colours.

Our duty is to believe that for which we have sufficient evidence, and to suspend our judgment when we have not.

Many of the greatest men have owed their success to industry rather than to cleverness.

When important decisions have to be taken, the natural anxiety to come to a right decision will often keep you awake. Nothing, however, is more conducive to healthful sleep than plenty of open air.

A pleasure is full grown only when it is remembered. C. S. LEWIS, Out of the Silent Planet True pleasures are paid for in advance; false pleasures afterwards, with heavy and compound interest.

Everyone must have felt that a cheerful friend is like a sunny day, which sheds its brightness on all around; and most of us can, as we choose, make of this world either a palace or a prison.

Those who have not distinguished themselves at school need not on that account be discouraged. the greatest minds do not necessarily ripen the quickest.

Art trains the mind through the eye, and the eye through the mind. As the sun colors flowers, so does art color life.

If you have the least doubt about it, do not marry.

A poor woman from Manchester, on being taken to the seaside, is said to have expressed her delight on seeing for the first time something of which there was enough for everybody.

We profit little by books we do not enjoy.

We must be careful what we read, and not, like the sailors of Ulysses, take bags of wind for sacks of treasure.

Men are more helped by sympathy than by service.

There are temptations which strong exercise best enables us to resist

Savages have often been likened to children, and the comparison is not only correct but also highly instructive. Many naturalists consider that the early condition of the individual indicates that of the race,-that the best test of the affinities of a species are the stages through which it passes. So also it is in the case of man; the life of each individual is an epitome of the history of the race, and the gradual development of the child illustrates that of the species.

False pleasures come from without and are imperfect: happiness is internal and our own.

The veil is slowly rising, but as regards innumerable questions we must be content to remain in ignorance.

We often hear of bad weather, but in reality no weather is bad. It is all delightful, though in different ways. Some weather may be bad for farmers or crops, but for man all kinds are good. Sunshine is delicious, rain is refreshing, wind braces us up, snow is exhilarating.

It is sad, indeed, to see how man wastes his opportunities. How many could be made happy, with the blessings which are recklessly wasted or thrown away.

We are all great landed proprietors, if we only knew it. What we lack is not land, but the power to enjoy it. Moreover, this great inheritance has the additional advantage that it entails no labor, requires no management. The landlord has the trouble, but the landscape belongs to everyone who has eyes to see it.