Arthur Helps Quotes

Credulity without enquiry is a sure way to deceive oneself.

Instead of hating the people you think are war-makers, hate the appetites and disorder in your own soul, which are the causes of war. If you love peace, then hate injustice, hate tyranny, hate greed - but hate these things in yourself, not in another.

My greatest strength is to have a great capacity to confront myself no matter how unpleasant. My greatest weakness is that I don't. I know that's enigmatic, but that's sort of a general formula for anyone, actually.

A lie may fool someone else, but it tells you the truth: you're weak.

Many a time comes when we want to interpret our weakness and cowardice as forgiveness and renunciation.

Discourses on humility are a source of pride in the vain and of humility in the humble. So those on scepticism cause believers to affirm. Few men speak humbly of humility, chastely of chastity, few doubtingly of scepticism.

Why will no man confess his faults? Because he continues to indulge in them; a man cannot tell his dream till he wakes.

Our credulity is greatest concerning the things we know least about. And since we know least about ourselves, we are ready to believe all that is said about us. Hence the mysterious power of both flattery and calumny.

But we are such deceivers that we will not look at ourselves in relationship, because there the real face can be seen. So we close our eyes to relationship, and we go on thinking that something is going to be seen inside. You cannot see anything inside.

Doubt your doubts before you doubt your beliefs.

You have to attempt to be objective about yourself.

As a person... I'm a little more doubtful, introspective and analytical.

The truth is, I've never fooled anyone. I've let men sometimes fool themselves.

I don't necessarily agree with everything I say.

I think it's important to have perspective and to look at what you don't necessarily want to see.

I think I tend to live in sort of a meta state of existence where I'm always analyzing and analyzing whatever I'm going through at any given moment, and a lot of times I'll reflect back on and go, 'Oh look at that - if I acted this way when that happened, I might not have thought of that that way.'

The art of living is the art of knowing how to believe lies.

What is called an acute knowledge of human nature is mostly nothing but the observer's own weaknesses reflected back from others.

Nothing is so difficult as not deceiving oneself

We wouldn’t want to live in a world where we couldn’t be conned. Because, in effect, we would then be living in a world where we mistrusted or refused to trust anyone.

Doubt is crucial, I think, in every character I have ever played.

I'm not afraid to blame myself for any of my own faults or just to analyze things in a different way, but I don't overanalyze, either.

I question everything I do.

The trouble with writing a book about yourself is that you can’t fool around. If you write about someone else, you can stretch the truth from here to Finland. If you write about yourself the slightest deviation makes you realize instantly that there may be honor among thieves, but you are just a dirty liar.